I spend a lot of time on the road, traveling from dairy to dairy, hotel to hotel. And I’ll admit, I don’t always eat as healthy as I should. It seems that every time I have lunch, I have one hand on the steering wheel and the other on a sandwich. The other day, I stopped at a fast-food place at the top of an exit ramp. I decided I would treat myself to a small shake. The young lady who took my order barely said five words. And the other girl that poured the shake ... she just set it on the counter without saying a word or even looking up at me.
Unfortunately it seems this type of “customer service” has become the norm at a lot of places. Why do you think that is? I suppose we could chalk it up to a “society in decline” or a generation that’s indifferent. Although that might be true, people have been saying that about the “next generation” for decades ... hopefully we’re wrong this time, too.
Sure, almost all of us entered the workforce doing entry-level “grunt work.” Eventually, we either moved up or moved on. Let’s face it, most of us didn’t grow up dreaming about doing entry-level jobs forever. Unfortunately, a lot of people tend to view an entry-level job as just that ... “a job.”
Although most workers on the front lines show up every day and do their work, they’re not exactly committed to their customers, co-workers or the company for the long haul.
So, leaving to do something else is relatively easy to do. And since most managers know that their entry-level employees aren’t planning to stay very long, they manage and compensate these employees “accordingly.”
You can see what happens next, right? It becomes a vicious cycle. Front-line employees don’t plan to stick around very long, so their managers treat them as “easy-to-replace.” And since employees know their boss isn’t going to invest a lot in them, they don’t invest a lot into their jobs.
If that sounds like a familiar scenario on your dairy, do you honestly believe that it’s a sound and sustainable approach to employee management?
Sure, compared to mid-level positions, these entry-level roles are easier to replace. But believe it or not, they’re just as valuable as the upper-level ones. No, their earning potential won’t be as high as their mid-level and upper-level coworkers.
And no, you probably won’t invest the same amount of time into their training and professional development. That makes sense, right? Your higher-end employees make “big-impact” decisions that influence a lot of outcomes. But wait a second ... so do your employees on the front lines.
Just like the front-line workers at a fast-food joint interact with all their customers, your front-line employees interact with all your cows. And it wasn’t the shift manager that affected my experience the other day, it was the performance of the front-line employees that I remember.
All too often, entry-level employees are undertrained and undervalued. And it’s precisely these people who have the biggest collective impact on your daily operations.
Without a doubt, upper-level employees make important contributions to a company’s performance every day. But as customers, we all depend on front-line employees a lot more than their managers.
Every day, your cows depend on the performance of the people who work on the front lines. Take care of your people in the trenches, and they’ll take care of you. PD
Tom Wall
Dairy Coach
Dairy Interactive, LLC
