There has long been a bit of a buzz about the question “how do we value employees?” The question is on what basis do we value them? After all, if we were to assign them a theoretical value, we risk commodifying them and succumbing to Taylor’s scientific management principles.
That’s why HR advocates always talk about valuing employees, which means we should take care of them. But why? Here is a story that was part of my university MBA course. That’s true, but they probably changed the name and embellished the story a bit.
This is the story of Fred’s head. This term is often used to refer to the tacit knowledge that someone possesses, but here it really is Fred’s head!
Fred worked for London Underground (now known as TfL) for many years and, like many workers before him, held the usual retirement party and received a gold watch. Then he left. At that time the London Underground had a fairly new line, the Victoria Line. It was unusual because it was very shallow, meaning the tunnels the trains passed through were relatively close to street level. Because of this, the line had to twist and turn to go around the foundations of some buildings.
Some time after Fred left, it was noticed that there was a significant increase in wear and tear on the train rails and wheels on this line. For a while, no one knew why until someone linked these events to Fred’s disappearance. What had Fred really done before he left?
Well, to prevent wear and tear, parts of the Victoria Line had been fitted with automatic lubrication mechanisms that released lubricant as trains passed.
That was an easy problem to solve then! Simply fill the system with the appropriate lubricant and you’re done! Well, the system was archived and many months’ worth of lubricant was expelled onto the track. Fred not only maintained the system, but also calibrated and tuned it.
Well, they finally resolved it, but this story highlights a few points.
- What tacit knowledge (implicit and uncodified) is stored in employees’ heads?
- How do we find out about this and make sure it is preserved?
- What else do our employees know that could be useful to our business?
It’s easy to obsess over knowledge itself and try to value it, but much greater value can be placed on the interactions between employees that lead to the discovery and creation of new knowledge. That may not be codified, but it can be integrated into organizational culture through storytelling.
In some ways, uncodified knowledge is ideal because it is difficult for competitors to copy it, even when an employee leaves and works for them.
So yes, our employees have value beyond their daily job, but we probably can’t assign a monetary value to it other than if something happened to our employees, how much would we need to spend to get back to the same position (an insurance value)? But we cannot yet assess the future impact.
If you need help figuring out what your employees know and how to capture and store it, contact us.
#employees #Derek #Cheshire
