A Radical Idea

Last week while waiting to meet my Dad at an airline baggage claim, I watched two of said airline's employees handle a baggage fiasco that was unfolding. Employee A was using a great deal of patience, restating, active listening, and emotional intelligence to tackle the ever increasing amount of people hurling their complaints at her. Employee B could not be bothered, and it was evident in his tone, body language, and responses to the ever decreasing amount of people leaving his line and going to Employee A.

Both employees worked for the same airline, so they have the same core values, and they should have the same desire for passenger complaint resolution. Should. There was not much of an age difference so it can't be chalked up to generational difference. In fact, there was no explanation for why the difference in approach.

Fast forward to a couple of hours later when in another discussion it came up about the disgraceful high school dropout rate we still have in Las Vegas. It's disgraceful and sad for everyone involved that these folks will go out into the world unprepared on many levels. And then a light bulb flashed light those old Kodak cameras: could part of the difference in approach in work ethic stem from lack of preparation before people graduate from high school?

It's no secret that turnover is expensive--except to some C-suite executives who still refuse to accept it because it's not always a hard cost to nail down. So the radical idea is this--should corporations take some of their profits and invest it in mentoring and succession planning in high schools? It would not replace career counseling but rather augment it. People could learn about some basic business acumen skills that would help the transfer between high school and the business world while they sought higher education or not. Then there might not be such a rough transition from high school to work, or college to work with the sink or swim mentality that is the great majority of philosophies out there.

However, with so many organizations focusing on now, or really close to now, this will require a huge shift in thinking and planning. The long term benefits are huge, especially in loyalty to the organizations that put forth some resources to make this happen. I'll keep posting my ideas and suggestions and welcome everyone to add theirs to the mix.