False economy forces you to donate to your employer
“False economy - an action that saves money at the beginning but which, over a longer period of time, results in more money being spent or wasted than being saved.”
Most managers (real managers that is), executives and consultants understand the concept of false economy. It is common sense and nothing to do with Leadershit. We avoid false economy in our personal spending, understand there is little point in a saving money on, for example, terrible motels that result in a miserable holiday.
It is probably important to note, not acting to reduce climate change will, undoubtedly, become the single most appalling example of false economy the human race has committed.
Back to an organisational level.
This begs the question why so many organisations are constantly trying to save money by reducing the administrative support provided to highly skilled and costly people. Often these roles are removed because they are ‘no longer required’ which defies logic. The work is still required unless the phones aren’t going to be answered, meetings organised, documents written, agenda’s prepared, staff coordinated, I could go on.
This should be classic false economy but here’s the rub. The work has to be done, so it is done by whoever is left after the axe has fallen. This usually means people spend more hours at work, or work in the evening to keep afloat. What should be false economy turns into theft of surplus value (yes, Marx was spot on as usual). In other words, those left provide hours for free. Yes free. Yes your donating to your organisation so someone else (who isn’t donating Jack) looks good and gets a bonus.
The heart of the problem rests with leadershit’s love affair with accounting. If they remove administration staff, and steal your time, they do save money. Accounting logic has a steely gaze on costs but a lazy eye on intangibles (motivation, job satisfaction, commitment, quality) which doesn’t appear in their spreadsheets. This results in a range of negative impacts, for example higher staff turnover (recruitment costs, gaps in service).
The answer is never let accountants control anything but, unfortunately, they seem to multiply when you’re busy in the evening working.
