The first company I picked was Hilton, where employees feel that they aren’t just a number in the system; they feel that the Hilton is caring and that employees are treated like family. This is reminiscent of the way the Lankford-Sysco employees seem to feel they are treated when they are mentioned in First, Break All the Rules. The employees at Lankford-Sysco genuinely seem to enjoy what they do as well as feel that they are cared for both personally and professionally by their bosses who have their pictures up on the wall in order to feel closer to them.
The second company I chose to focus on was Cheesecake Factory Incorporated. Employees here feel that the company cares about employees’ personal and professional well-being and are accepting of people of all kinds. This speaks to me about diversity. I think that some employers are more likely to hire a diverse employee population based on the geographical location of the business; some places are just more likely to have a diverse population than others making it easier to hire diverse employees.
The third company I chose to focus on was Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI). REI employees admire the company’s passion for the outdoors, excellence, and commitment to doing the right thing and how they prioritize purpose over profit. I do think that businesses have become increasingly aware of their impacts on the environment and on the planet, and companies like REI have seemed to almost make it cool to care about the environment. Every year on Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, REI closes its doors to the public and encourages its customers to get outside and to enjoy the great outdoors rather than spend the day doing something that people do all the time anyway, which is shopping. They are innovative in the way that they see themselves as a business because they are aware of the image that they project out into the world and they try to use that platform as responsibly as they can while still striving to maintain a healthy business. In a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to prioritize things above profit, REI strives to make sure that it continues to do so.
The last company I chose to focus on was Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts. These employees appreciate that the company genuinely cares about employees; employee was offered a place to sleep at the hotel when they lost their home in a disaster. To me this says that Four Seasons is genuinely concerned about the well-being of its employees and that they really are like family. I honestly don’t think that if something happened to my house, my employer would be able to offer me a place to sleep. I’ve heard stories about hotels that hosted traveling nurses who traveled to heavily pandemic-stricken areas to work and some of these hotels took great pride in being able to provide for these healthcare heroes.
As for the kind of manager I would like to be and the role I think the HR functions and activities discussed in the lectures and readings will play in me being that manager, in terms of functional HR areas, I like to think that I would encourage and support diversity if I was involved in the hiring processes of individuals because I am someone that would fall into the category of being racially diverse. Growing up in a town where there wasn’t a lot of diversity, I appreciate that where I live now celebrates and practices diversity in the workplace a lot more purposefully than where I used to live. I know what it’s like to work in places that are diverse as well as places that aren’t and I can honestly say that it was more interesting to work in places where there was more variation in the backgrounds of the people that worked there.
To address another functional HR area, I would have to say that retention and engagement would be something that I would prioritize as well. This is because I know what it’s like to hold a job where there is a high turnover rate and where you feel like people are constantly leaving the workplace while newcomers are constantly being trained to take the place of someone that just left; the strain that this creates and the toll this takes on supervisors and management becomes apparent and I feel that a high rate of turnover does in part have a lot to do with how a workplace is manager. In the reading from the class text First, Break All the Rules this week, it is mentioned that people don’t quit jobs, rather they actually quit managers. I have to admit I can heartily relate to this. I once left a job because I didn’t like the way a manager treated me (among many other reasons), but I do agree that a manager can play a pivotal role in an employee’s decision to stay with or to leave a company.
As for the aspects of a manager’s job I think are likely to be most challenging, I think one of the most difficult aspects of being a manager for me would be living up to employee expectations and making sure that I am satisfying their needs as employees. I like to think that I’m capable of meeting expectations most of the time, but I also realize that it is possible for people to expect more from me than I am actually capable of. This happens rarely, but when it does happen, I struggle with the idea that I don’t measure up to those expectations. This is something I may struggle with for the rest of my life but which I welcome to challenge me because I know it won’t only make me a stronger person, it will make me a better leader in any capacity. I know I can’t stop caring about what people think of me, because if I do, I will no longer try to please them, and while that’s not necessarily the first priority, what people think and how they feel should be taken into consideration.
I think it may also prove difficult to reconcile what I think managing people should be like with what managing people is actually like. I think that getting people to understand the vision I have in any situation and to support or at least not totally hate it would prove difficult given everyone comes from such different backgrounds and has such different beliefs and communication styles. I see managers as conductors of a symphony: groups of people may be playing different instruments with different parts, but it’s ultimately the conductor’s job to make sure that everyone does their part to make sure their part of the song is represented and that everyone comes to the end of the same song at the same time and is on the same page, literally and metaphorically.