Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, says the brutal recession has prompted more companies to create just-in-time labor forces that can be turned on and off like a spigot. “Employers are trying to get rid of all fixed costs,” Cappelli says. “First they did it with employment benefits. Now they’re doing it with the jobs themselves. Everything is variable.” That means companies hold all the power, and “all the risks are pushed on to employees.”
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I read this story, and I thought they were talking about our industry. lol. Seriously though, this is a great read, and it brings up some issues that definitely apply to us.
The only thing we really have going for us, is that security needs go up, when wars, crime, and disasters go up. So with this recession and all the wars we are in, there will continue to be a need for professional security folks.
But as an observer of the industry over the years, salaries have definitely gone down, qualifications have gone up, demand for jobs has been steady, and benefits are pretty scarce. Oh, and there really is no loyalty to companies.
The companies involved with security operations are doing the exact same things mentioned in this article, and they are creating the exact kind of results within their disposable workforce they contract. It may save them money and fatten up the wallets of the corporate leadership, but what a short sighted concept of business? You are creating a workforce community who could care less about company loyalty or customer service and satisfaction.
When I hear companies complain about high turn over or quality control problems that lead to defaults on contract, I think to myself, what did you expect? If you don’t value your people, then why would your people value anything that you care about? It is a cycle that has been created over the years, and both the companies and contractors will always look at each other as ‘us versus them’, and not ‘we’. Until companies take that first step of true leadership and compassion for their people, this cycle will only continue.
I also think that applying some Jundism will actually save a company more money in the future, get them more contracts, help them to hang on to their current contracts longer, and all of that will help them to destroy the competition and make them more profitable. But that is just my opinion. –Matt
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The Disposable Worker
January 7, 2010
Pay is falling, benefits are vanishing, and no one’s job is secure. How companies are making the era of the temp more than temporary
By Peter Coy, Michelle Conlin and Moira Herbst
On a recent Tuesday morning, single mom Tammy DePew Smith woke up in her tidy Florida townhouse in time to shuttle her oldest daughter, a high school freshman, to the 6:11 a.m. bus. At 6:40 she was at the desk in her bedroom, starting her first shift of the day with LiveOps, a Santa Clara (Calif.) provider of call-center workers for everyone from Eastman Kodak (EK) and Pizza Hut (YUM) to infomercial behemoth Tristar Products. She’s paid by the minute—25 cents—but only for the time she’s actually on the phone with customers.
By 7:40, Smith had grossed $15. But there wasn’t much time to reflect on her early morning productivity; the next child had to be roused from bed, fed, and put onto the school bus. Somehow she managed to squeeze three more shifts into her day, pausing only to homeschool her 7-year-old son, make dinner, and do the bedtime routine. “I tell my kids, unless somebody is bleeding or dying, don’t mess with me.”
