Reflect and Re-adjust
Make Sure You Have The Right People In Your Organisation
Building a business is risky. Every day you face the threat of losing market share to your competitors or new technology. You even face the risk of theft or hacking and take steps to make your place of work secure. But what if we told you your greatest threat comes from within? For these companies, their biggest threat came from their own employees.
Blatant stupidity.
The internet, how we love it. The ability to reach thousands of people with your brand message makes it easy to get attention. HSBC got a lot of attention when a few of its employees dressed up and filmed themselves carrying out an ISIS style beheading of an Asian colleague. They broadcast the result on the internet. In July 2012, a Burger King employee took a photo of himself standing in a tub of lettuce in dirty shoes. He posted the photo on the internet with the caption: ‘This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King.’ Those involved were sacked and the respective companies issued profuse apologies for the behaviour of their mid to low-level employees. But sometimes, the trouble’s at the top…
Blunders by people who should know better.
Thorsten Heins was sacked by Blackberry in November 2012. He was only in his post as CEO for 22 months. Although he did achieve quite a bit in that time, including a drop in share price of 22% and a quarterly $1 billion loss. He also managed to mess up a proposed buy-out from Fairfax Holdings worth $4.7 billion.
To be fair, Blackberry was already in trouble when Heins took over. But Microsoft was doing just fine when Bill Gates handed the reins to Steve Ballmer. During Ballmer’s time as CEO, Microsoft’s shares fell by 36% and the Zune, Microsoft’s music player, was a complete flop. (No, we’d not heard of it either.)
We’ve covered stupidity and incompetence; unfortunately there’s one more way your employees can cause headaches.
The honest mistake.
Way back in 1995, a typo on a spreadsheet cost Fidelity, a US investment company, huge embarrassment. Instead of reporting losses of $1.3 billion, they omitted a minus sign and their final books were up (and incorrect) by $2.6 billion. Once they found the error they had to explain to their shareholders why they weren’t going to receive the share distribution promised.
Fidelity was red-faced, but didn’t actually lose any money, unlike TransAlta, the Canadian power generator. A cut-and-paste error in an Excel spreadsheet led to the company buying more high priced US power contracts. The cost? $24 million.
How to avoid ‘The enemy within’
Two things. First and foremost, choose your employees wisely. With special consideration of their personality and values. Secondly, give them proper training and bring them up to speed properly on your own procedures. A simple plan of what to do when a new employee starts is all you need to ensure silly mistakes are avoided. And guess what? We’ve written a plan for you.
Ready to start your recruitment process? Give us a call today and let’s find you your next star employee: 01256 322 255.
Download our free new-employee checklist and make sure your new recruit is happy, settled and is less likely to make costly errors or damage your reputation!
