Relating to Employees

Posted On: 2006-03-16
Length: 23:38

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From the studios of Netcast Central, the Business Success Tips with Paul

Hello.

Andy.

Hi there.

Lee.

Ye ha!

And me,

Who are you?

I go nameless.

Your name is John.

Thank you.

He also goes by JC and Jolly and hey you.

Hey you!

Yeah.

See it works.

That's right. Ok. So we had a couple interesting things that we were debating between the shows.

Contentiously.

Ok, one is, there are clients that I have known, this has happened to a couple of my clients cases where the client decides to do investment. They buy a new building, they buy rental property, they all of a sudden they start moving forward on their own personal plan. And then it looks like the business becomes a way for them to get rich,

Yeah, this is an owner, a business owner?

Business owners do this. And in planning they go, I need to own a building, or I need to do some investments. And let's take, they're a construction company or something. All of a sudden they, you know, the employees are working for them on their new building.

Well wait a minute. Go back a bit. You said something about the owners doing something to make themselves rich.

Well what happened is the owner, who's, you know

But is that correct?

Yeah, well wait a minute. Am I the only one here that sees that there's really no problem with that? You're in business to make money, right?

I think the owner should probably try and cover it up a little bit better.

It's not that, it's when, it's when you do it and the employees don't feel like they're a part, in a way, or they feel like their own personal either 401K, bonuses are suffering because the owner's funneling money into their profits.

He's sucking the business dry for his own means.

Is it really that way, or is it perceived that way?

It doesn't matter. Cause perception is a reality.

Yeah. Often times it'll have, you know, in our past experience, it IS perception, I mean, it's not actually true, like, they're not actually, you know,

Which should be easier to fix if it's just perception.

Yeah. Perception.

But what if it's really that way?

And that happens, too.

Is it that way in this particular case?

Well, I've had cases where it is and where it isn't. But what can happen, if the employees perceive that you don't care about them anymore, and you only care about you, and, you know, employees don't get excited about going to work to make the owner rich. That's not like, oh boy, I'm going to bust my ass to make the owner rich. And that happens in small businesses lots of times, where the owner of the small business is focused on buying buildings, buying rentals, whatever it is, and you know, like I had a client one time

But isn't that OK if it doesn't matter and the employees are unhappy about it, then fine, leave, I'll get some more employees.

But lots of times

Because you're so easy to train, I can get employees like that.

If the key employees feel that way, because there are some employees, you can, sure, a dime a dozen, you know, get em 10 bucks an hour all day long.

Like me.

Yeah.

But then there's other employees, if they leave, you know, they are a huge part of your company.

Well, shouldn't a business owner try and essentially hide what they're doing from those key people, though?

No, no. I don't think they need to hide it. I think you can have open books. It's just that if you, if the perception of the employees is that you really don't care about them and you only care about your...