Fast Company has dedicated his latest issue to the importance of dealing with change in the workplace [Change or Die]. Very timely topic, and useful tips, given my excruciating need for a job change right now.
Thinking about this made me also reflect on the corporate myth of infinite flexibility of the workforce. Several examples of people ruined by new “opportunities” or promotions crossed my mind; people misplaced from the job they loved and they did with satisfaction and pride to a job they neither loved nor did well. For example, I thought of the guy who works in my cafeteria. Let’s call him Mark. Mark used to cook and serve food and he did it with a passion. He loved cooking food and feeding people and was able to add some nice specials to the daily boring and never-changing menu of the cafeteria. One day, some people left the job or were moved and Mark was given the “opportunity” to step up as manager and work at the cash register. He took his job seriously. I watched while he struggled to learn how to use the impossibly unusable cash register, while infinite lines of impatient corporate employees waited to pay. I could see his creative juices getting dry, his soul withering a little bit every day. Keeping him away from the kitchen was unusual and cruel punishment. Not only for him, but also for us customers, now having to deal with the boring and fairly bad daily selection of prepackaged food as well as with long lines at the cash register. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending (at least for now). Mark is back to the kitchen, the yummy specials are back, and we don’t have to wait too long in line to pay. He shines again, promoting with pride his new specials (don’t miss his Mexican dishes) and running up and down behind the counter.
Was Mark unable to change to accommodate to new work conditions? Or, rather, was it bad management, arrogant and unable to understand strengths and weaknesses of its employees? Why this blind drive to move people that are good in their job and happy to be there? And yet, I see it everyday, and the results are often catastrophic. The infinite flexibility of the workforce is just myth, and it can be very dangerous.