Has the American work ethic gone down the drain ? And is the work ethic of immigrants better than the American workers? As a manager for a nationwide retailer, I have to ponder these questions daily.
My store has twenty employees. Eighteen of our employees are American, one is Puerto Rican ( ok, he's American, but from a different culture) and one is from Zambia, Africa.
The Puerto Rican has an outstanding attendence record. He has worked for our company for four years, and he has only missed four days of work in those four years.
The Zambian has worked for our company off and on during the summer break for two years, and he also has an outstanding attendence record. He has only missed one day of work in those two years.
Now we are down to the other eighteen employees.
We have four American employees who have similar attendence records. I can bank on these four American employees as well as the Puerto Rican and the Zambian to be at work when they are scheduled as well as doing an outstanding job. No problem at all with these six employees. All of us have each others back. I back them up, and they back me up.
Now we are down to the last fourteen of our employees.
The attendence records of these fourteen employees look like dart boards. The no call-no show is a very common occurence with these sixteen employees. These sixteen employes often get this disease called " weekend virus ". They may show up for work during the week, but come the weekend, their immune systems seem to take a downslide.These sixteen employees also have a lot of " family emergencies " during the weekends. They also have a heck of a lot of " accidents with serious injuries " at home during the weekends. It's not only on the weekends, these things do occur during the week as well, however they are more common during the weekends.
Now you may be asking if this is a rate of pay issue, or perhaps a part time opposed to full time issue, so let's break it down.
American employee # 1 is full time. He is our Funiture Manager, and his rate of pay is appx $10.00 per hour. He has been with our company for four years.He has an outstanding attendence record as well as great work ethic.
American employee # 2 is full time. She is the full time furniture sale clerk and she earns appx $8.00 per hour. She has been with our company for 9 years. She has an outstanding attendence record as well as great work ethic.
American employee # 3 is full time. She is a front end supervisor and she earns appx $ 9.00 per hour. She has been with our company for three years. She has an outstanding attendence record as well as great work ethic.
American employee # 4 is part time. She is a cashier and she earns appx $ 5.60 per hour. She has been with our company for eight months.She has an outstanding attendence record as well as great work ethic
Our Zambian employee is part time. He is a cashier and he earns appx $ 5.60 per hour. He has been with our company off and on during the summer break for two years. He has an outstanding attendence record as well as great work ethic.
Our Puerto Rican employee is part time. He is a front end supervisor and he earns appx $ 9.00 per hour. He has been with our company for four years. He has an outstanding attendence record as well as great work ethic.
The other fourteen are part time and earn appx $ 5.40 per hour. The most seasoned of these fourteen is a veteran of two months. All of their attendence records plain and simpley suck as well as their work ethic. It's like pulling teeth just to get them to gather shopping carts from the parking lot, which isn't a very difficult job at all. I have actually had employees quit on the spot because they didn't want to gather the shopping carts from the parking lot. God forbid if they had to actually perform a hard job such as working on a farm, construction work or mowing yards.
Now you may be asking this question. Does my company tolerate such behaviour ?
Of course not. Just four weeks ago, I prepared ten personell files for potential employees, and I've already gone through all ten of them. At one point, I had just as many new personell files prepared to send to our general office as I had terminated employees, and these terminated employees were full time as well as part time. In fact, three of the treminated employees were salaried management personell who were terminated for dishonest acts, and all of them were well paid. Their saliries varied anywhere from $ 28.000 to $ 35.000 per year, which is damn good for this geographical area.
So now you may be asking the following questions.
Has the work ethic of Americans gone down the drain ?
Should we hire immigrants to fill these jobs ?
Should we hire illegal immigrants to fill these jobs ? Of course not!
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Comments: 41
i don't know the answer to your questions. i'm 55 and so i probably have a different moral/ethical history than your employees.
we've done the "no consequences" and "let's give everyone a gold star" and "let's just give him an ipod" thing for a while and now those kids are grown up. our generation didn't do very well passing along our values and ethics.
Don't know what part of the country you are in but the salaries you are claiming to pay today, are salaries that people were paid for those responsibilities over 20 years ago....
I live in western Kentucky. I myself earn $ 35.000 plus bonus. The cost of living here is very low, so I make a comfortable living.
Actually, if the employees in the $ 8.00 to $ 9.00 range were to watch their spending, they could live comfortabley as well.
Thanks for the 10. I'm 46, and you're right. We are dealing with a generatrion that has different values than you and I were raised with.
If the expectations are not realistic, who is to blame?
It is a good idea to be very clear about limits on abscenses and failure to perform when hiring, this of course has to be followed up by firing non performing staff. If you have even one dishonest, frequently absent, irresponsible person on board, the attitude of "if he/she can get away with it, why do I have to be responsible?"
My work experience is entirely in the high paid tech industry, in Engineering and Marketing; all were very high paid professionals. Most worked very long hours, but even there we had flakes, who didn't show or were non-performing and had to be fired or laid off at the first hint of slowdown.
I also work for a nationwide retail store. Our starting wages are a little better than Timothy's store, but not much. We have 500 workers and we have the same issues that Timothy listed. I can honestly say, however, watching the different ethnic groups, there are bad seeds in all of them, as well as high standards set by others. Many of the younger employees are the ones we have troubles with. I think it all comes with the instant gratification society we live in. Many of them have credit cards, so they are buying what they want anyway, and get into trouble with bounced checks and high credit card debt.
Are these 14 part-time employees kids or young adults?
Do they have families that depend on them? What are their reasons/goals for working in your store? Is it just for extra cash to spend on the weekend? I think if you asked these types of questions to your "dependable" employees and compare their answers to those of the remaining fourteen, you may just find the answers you're looking for. Of course, you may get a few dishonest answers from some, but you will know from their actions as employees.
BTW, there is a medical term for employees who frequently miss work. It has been discovered that a certain number of employees hired by any given employer will develop a condition that is known as "Anal Vision Impairment". This occurs at different times when they just "can't see their asses going to work"! :)
This is exactly the kind of data the corporations are submitting to Congressmen and Senators in defense of "resorting to illegal hiring practices."
It's an "in your face" reality - regardless of the reasoning.
Assume for a moment, that you a sole propietor. How long do you think you could manage with the accounting/paperwork expenses? Bottom line is, the jobs you are hiring for are MINIMUM WAGE - you can't afford to pay a cashier $10 hr. and you can't afford NOT to have a cashier.
This is a great example of why we are a nation of immigrants. Think about it. They arrive here knowing they will have to sludge their way through, find an employer who values their work ethic high enough to take the risk, then stand up for them - no matter the cost.
The immigrants know the sacrifice. They know the personal cost, they know our culture ostracizes them, they know they are at risk from unscrupulous employers. They work hard and they hope, one day, our nation will come to the conclusion that they have earned the right to legality.
You don't strike me as a person who would knowingly break a law. You don't strike me as a person who would openly discriminate against anyone - regardless of where they come from.
However, your reality is exactly the reality faced by sole proprietorships and corporations all over this country.
I don't think it's due to laziness. I think it is very much related to our culture nowadays. We buy our kids clothes and cars and push that college degree. They work for pocket change or because it seems like the thing to do. When in reality there are very few who depend on those jobs to eat - like H.G. points out.
We are better trained, better educated and have higher expectations. We may work that cashier position but only until another job, paying better and in the field we want, comes along.
Where does that leave the businesses who desperately need these lower-skilled positions filled - especially when there are hundreds of immigrants - illegal- who would work every day, every hour, without complaint and be totally satisfied with that $5.60 per hour?
Timothy: Have you visited other stores in other states to see if they have Mexican employees or employees you suspect could be lacking the proper paperwork?
Just curious.
About visiting other stores in other states to see if they have Mexican employees or employees that I suspect could be laking the proper paperwork ? Actually, I've been to meetings at a few of our stores in Indiana, and I haven't seen anyone that I suspected of being illegal. Though I will say that I've chatted with truck drivers from our warehouses in Alabama and Ohio, and they all have stated that a very large percentage of the employees at both warehouses are suspected illegals. I haven't seen it at any of our stores though.
I occasionaly joke around with my boss saying " maybe we should go down to the Mexican restaurant and get some illegal Mexicans ". ( btw, that offer has been made to me ) His reply is always " OH HELL NO! " Both he and I refuse to hire illegals.
The cashiers job paying $5.40 per hour ? That's not exactly a low skilled job. I have a very hard time finding any of the locals here who can perform that job, which forces me to hire college students. Yes, this job should pay more than $5.40. I've argued that fact with our corporate office, and my words fall on deaf ears.
I will tell you that I once offered a Mexican lady a job. I showed her the back of the I-9 form and the documents required for me to hire her, and she couldn't provide me with any of the documents, so of course I didn't hire her. She now works at the local Wal-Mart as a cashier
I'll give you a prime example. I was in the grocery store last week, and the carry-out kid offered to take my groceries to the car while I wrote a check and got my receipt. The passenger side outside door handle is broken on my van, but both front windows were down. When I got to the van a few minutes later, he was standing at the passenger door of my van with the groceries still in the basket because HE COULDN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET THEM INTO THE VAN! This kid is a high school senior here, and while he's not honor role material, he's passing everything with at least a "C". It never, not once, occurred to him to either reach in the open window and try to open the door from the inside or, even more easy, to simply put the groceries in the front seat through the window, even though he had bagged the stuff and knew that there was nothing that was mashable, breakable, or fragile in any way in the bags and he could clearly see that the seat was empty. This kid is now making $5.35 an hour, up from $5.15, after a month of work ONLY BECASE HE SHOWS UP WHEN HE IS SCHEDULED! He's at least, as the store manager puts it, a reliable warm body even if he has no deductive reasoning power at all. This is, I'm sure, what Timothy faces from his 14 employees every day and trust me, it isn't worth minimum wage, much less a living wage.
I'll give you an example of just what you're talking about. ( btw everyone, our store doesn't just sell furniture, we also sell general merchandise, food, hardware, household chemicals, and a hell of a lot of junk imported from China )
A customer had just paid for a recliner. I got the recliner down and sat it right in the middle of the aisle. I told one of our employees to get a two wheeler and bring the recliner to the back door. I even pointed to the recliner as well as the two wheeler. He then came to the back door empty handed and asked me where the recliner as well as the two wheeler were.
Good point. I see this respect issue with the younger generation every day. They just don't seem to get it.
Go somewhere.
" Anal Vision Impairment " ha ha, I just love that !
Good point, but still no excuse for hiring illegals.
I would rather suffer through the attitudes and no call- no shows than stoop to the level of hiring illegals.
Would you hire them, then?
I presume that you are talking about a new law that would grant amnesty to the illegals that are already here?
I use the I-9 form. Employees have to submit certain documents required on the I-9 form by Federal Law. I don't discriminate against anyone because of race or national origin. But I don't beleive in giving immigrants the first shot at the jobs in favor of American workers.
So to answer your question, they would have an equal chance at the jobs provided that they can speak good English. A person has to speak good English in order to work in retail where they have to assist American customers.
Yes, the work ethic of SOME American workers has gone down the drain, but replacing them ENTIRELY with immigrant workers isn't the answer as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps we should put the lazy American workers , especially the younger ones, in some sort of boot camp to straighten them out.
Our country is changing - again..sigh. We are indeed less inclined to start at the bottom. Our expectation is that we will be educated and take our place among the upper-middle-class.
I know I teach my kids that not attending college is not an option. If they listen, they won't be looking forward to a life as a cashier. I also teach them that they have to work for what they get....so, they may be in some entry-level employment short-term, but...I certainly hope they will make a decent wage someday.
hmmmm....Not giving immigrants the first shot....? What does that mean, exactly?
If an applicant is legal and meets the requirements would you wait to see if anyone else applies - making the immigrant wait a few days longer than any citizen would have to?
If so, that's discrimination.
It shouldn't matter, Timothy. You should only care that they can perform the labor necessary - not what color they are or their first language or whether or not they are an immigrant.
Right?
Don't let them BS you. As soon as they become "legal", they are no different than any other worker here in the U.S. In fact, this whole idea of illegals working harder than Americans is total BS! My wife works for a school district here. Several years ago, the district decided to contract out the night cleaning operation to save money. They eliminated the district employees who were doing the job and hired an outside company. As it turns out, these contractors (there were several) hired illegals to perform the cleaning duties. Not long after, the buildings were looking worse than they ever did. People were complaining throughout the district about floors not being cleaned, mops being used in the same water for weeks, carpets not being vacuumed. And teachers were complaining that their classroom T.V.'s were being switched to Mexican programing every night. Kitchen workers complained about items missing from the kitchen when they arrived to work each morning, kitchens not being cleaned as per health department guidelines etc. Yeah, they work harder than Americans alright.
When our store has job opening, I screen the applications and interview the applicants that could possibly be qualified to do the job. Then after I have interviewed the applicants, my boss and I set down and choose the ones that we think are the most qualified, and my boss usually considers my recomendations. If you call that discrimination, then you my friend are misguided.
Also Jackie, before you decide to play the race card on me in the future, consider this. I have a Puerto Rican, a Zambian and three African Americans working at the store, and I hired all of them. I took a break at work last night with three of my Cuban customers and I had lunch today with one of my Chinese friends.
Very interesting.
I have seen on TV where there are military style boot camps that parents send their children to when they can't get them under control.
LOL...It was an honest comment based upon what you said, nothing more. You made it sound as if you would not hire a qualified immigrant over a citizen...If that was not your intent, please clarify.
OK, guys, call me what you will but if you accept a job, knowing what your pay will be when you accept it and what you will be expected to do for that pay when you accept it, then you are morally obligated to do that job for that rate of oay, whatever it may be. A low pay rate does not entitle you to sit on your sorry butt collecting your employer's money when that same rate of pay is what you agreed to work for. If you don't like your pay, do the job until you find something better, but while you're there do what you agreed to do for the pay you agreed to accept.
In my last comment to you, I explained my hiring process from start to finish. It's as fair as fair can be.
You make some very good points that are hard to argue. I do agree that retailers don't pay enough. It's part of the capitalist attitude that is overtaking our country.
The company that I work for announced record profits for the second quarter of this fiscal year, and now my District Manager tells me that we can't hire any full time employees because the company " can't afford the benifits ". Hmmm, " record profits " ? " can't afford to pay benifits " ? It's not just my company, other companies are doing this as well.
If you aren't a coal miner or work in healthcare where I come from, you don't make a decent living. I did neither. I was a secretary with a huge work ethic, a low wage and no benefits.
It CAN change for those who are always looking - for those intent upon doing all they can to make their lives decent. Not rich, not stock holders - just decent.
The point is not always whether or not we will work. Sometimes it's geographical and some areas are more depressed than others. Timothy lives in an area that has depressed wages. The wages are not depressed because of illegal immigration - they have been depressed for generations.
I also lived in an area known for historically depressed wages and very little opportunity without a college degree (and sometimes WITH a college degree).
We Hillbillies are known as backwoods and lazy but, I'll tell you, they do not meet my definition of lazy. Hillbillies wake up early in the a.m. - usually about 6 a.m. They eat breakfast and head out to work on cars, hunt, fish or pick up cans or steal copper or hunt for gin seng. They leave and are gone most of the day.
Meanwhile, the women clean the dishes and after getting everyone in school, go visit friends and family. They walk most of the time - sometimes they sit on the porch and people stop by. Their houses are trailers, old "company houses," but very rarely anything new. They may work, they may not.
When the man comes through the door, the woman makes sure he's fed, the kids are fed, the dishes clean and it starts all over.
We have horrible reputations for remaining in an area "without hope." We don't often own computers, we aren't big on cell phones (reception sucks), we might have cable - we might not. We love to talk on the phone, though and we'll pay the phone bill before the "light bill."
If you know Hillbillies - then you know our reputation. We are "shit" to our fellow Americans. We are the unstable, uneducated, backwoods sorry asses that never amount to anything.
Fact is: We accept what we are. We don't much care what anyone says. We are truly free. We want to hunt - we step out the back door. We want to fish, we head to the river. We rarely see a police man and when we do, we aren't likely to be friendly unless he grew up there - in which case he's probably totally ineffective.
I know at one time we led the nation in terms of military service. I know we are fiercely patriotic and protective of our own.
I left there to chase the dollar. I left there to feed my kids. I paid a price - I don't belong there anymore - and I'll never quite fit in here, either.
BUT, I managed to build a life in an area known for its employment opportunities. Family members pat me on the back and tell me how proud they are that I "got out."
Sometimes, I wish I still sat on that porch and I wish I'd never seen a freaking computer and learned so much about immigration and politics and all the rest.
WE choose not to take risks, duane. We choose to remain or to leave. I don't insult work ethic by stating the truth - there aren't enough of us left at entry-level who are satisfied with staying there and unfortunately many companies have thousands of employment records to make their case.
The coal mine companies are recruiting heavily in other areas now. There aren't enough of us left who want to mine coal. If you look at the demographics of WV, you'll see it's one of the top states who continue to suffer a population decrease. They are already bringing in Mexicans to work the mines at $15-18 per hour.
That's the way of it.
As for ethics - I don't tell my kids to work hard....I tell them to work smart. Go to college, get your degree - don't suffer through life. I tell them, "You want to go back home (WV), get a health degree or a degree in education and you can work anywhere you want."
I don't teach them to start at entry-level and actually, I never even realized it before Timothy's article....
Both of you have made some very good points.
Jackie,
As I've stated before on one of your threads, I lived in eastern Kentucky from 1985-1986. Back then it was " coal mine, moonshine or move on down the line ". BTW, the reason those hillbillies never saw the police was the fact that the police were afraid of them ! ha ha No offense intended, I did make some good friends while I was there. If you make a friend amongst those people, you have a friend who will stick by your side through thick and thin.