Mike Ashley is one of Britain’s richest men, and the founder of Britain’s biggest retailers.
The BBC news has today reported that in a Guardian undercover investigation (and subsequent parliamentary review), Mike Ashley’s firm has been found to be running “a workhouse, not a workplace”
Staff are effectively paid less than the minimum wage, because they are required to undertake security checks (read: they’re vigorously searched) in their own time. Conversely, if people are just one minute late, Sports Direct will dock their pay. They also operate a “six strikes and you’re out” rule, for a range of ‘offences’. This includes a December 2015 occurrence of someone giving birth in the toilets, along with four other “miscarriage or pregnancy related complications”, which came about because their staff feared disciplinary action. There were 72 other ambulance call-outs, including 36 of which were “life-threatening”. Apparently, it’s fine for staff to stay behind after work in their own time to be searched, but any other absences (even life threatening ones) could be punishable with losing your job. And Mike Ashley’s reply? “I’m not Father Christmas”.
These practices, with the review of any decent HR or Talent professional that I know of, would most likely be dismissed as unfair and over-the-top. These draconian policies were most likely dreamed up as a response to some perceived threat, and I’d like to think that no forward-thinking professional would consider them.
The effects of this “culture of fear” are certainly shocking, but I believe this is only the symptom of something much more insidious and disturbing. The thing that shocks me the most is how the mind-set of some organisations still exists in the industrial revolution. From the 1750s right up until the 1970s & 1980s, the ‘factory-line’ mentality worked very well, scaling down huge operations into bite-size, manageable, simple tasks. It was great for menial tasks that only required a human being to show up for work, on time, or the production line would stop.
But nowadays in the post-machine, digital age, the means of production has shifted from employer to employee. If you want people to act like people (in other words to think, collaborate, use their initiative and solve problems), they you need to treat them like a human being and not a slightly better-smelling machine.
Trust them implicitly; even if one or two of them might steal from you. Take care of their wellbeing and treat them like individuals; even if there’s hundreds or even thousands of them. Communicate with them, ask them what they think and then listen to the replies; even if some don’t want to talk. Develop them and grow them; even if some of them end up leaving the business. And recognise them, thank them and praise them; even if they’re only doing their job.
In summary, I think leaders have a moral, ethical and legal obligation to treat people like people. The definition and concept of leadership has shifted in recent years, and I hope it continues to shift.
Profit is not the be-all-and-end-all, to be obtained at all (human) costs. Profit is a by-product of treating your people well. And for those people that dispute the connection between people-centric businesses and bottom line profit? Well, Sports Direct has just had an estimated £600m wiped off the company’s value, with untold more damage in reputation and brand. Imagine if just a fraction of that had been invested in developing a people-centred organisation.
