While CEOs like to remind their workforces that they are the company’s most valuable asset, employee trust in the paternalism of their bosses decreases the futher you get from senior management. It’s great when you meet a shop floor worker who has a good word for the bosses – but rare!
There have always been employers who have addressed this scepticism. The Leverhulmes at Port Sunlight, the Cadbury’s at Bourneville. When these dynasties pass away, their is usually trouble as Kraft and Unilever have recently discovered but the legacy lives on in the employee benefits that are part of the corporate infrastructure.
Occasionally a company comes out of the pack and attempts to create a similar culture albeit on modern lines, you feel that this is what is going on at Morrisons. Through a variety of programs, Morrisons are creating the noise that they hope will get them “employer of choice” in their sector. With 140,000 staff, this is an ambitious task.
What I admire about Morrisons is that they appear to be looking at employee issues from a starting point quite different from the one I’m used to.
Instead of asking “where can we the employer get the maximum bang for our Employee Benefit buck”, they are asking “what are the knowns and unknowns that will mess up our staff and what can we do to help them?”
They have come up with a campaign called “Save your Dough” which aims to provide staff with tips, delivered by America TV finance pundit Alvin Hall. What gets on to the campaign’s agenda depends on what Morrisons consider important.
Talking with Morrisons, they’ve worked out that one of the real problems they’ve got to sort their staff is the shortage of help their staff are getting at retirement.
It’s great to hear that they are interested in doing something about this through their “Save your Dough” campaign. Not only are they trying to provide solutions through their new Pensions 2012 risk-sharing pension, they are looking to alert their staff to problems so they make the most of their wages.
Let’s hope that more companies like them, take strategic decisions based on what their staff need rather than on agendas driven by secondary considerations.
Related articles
- Auto-enrolment – winners and losers. (henrytapper.com)
- Morrison’s “Save our Dough” campaign. (henrytapper.com)
- Save £10 at Morrisons (thesun.co.uk)
- Top News! – Scrap national insurance on your pension payments! (henrytapper.com)
- Simple way to boost pensions (express.co.uk)