Like many Americans, I found myself glued to a new TV show, “Undercover Boss”, that aired right after the Super Bowl.  Something about this show had ALL of my previously raucous party attendees riveted for an hour.

At first, it seemed like the show was about ‘spying on employees’ and sort of made me feel sick given my commitment to helping companies understand the link between employee loyalty and customer loyalty…and ultimately business success. After awhile, however, it became evident that even if the boss’s original intent HAD been to spy on his employees to find them doing something wrong, the real experience became something very different…the boss (Larry O’Donnell, President and C.O.O. of Waste Management), via various entry level roles such as cleaning portable toilets and collecting garbage, got a REAL view of what it’s like to work for Waste Management.

This view from the ground made him realize that:

  • He has some terrific employees who are devoted to providing good service
  • Many of the guidelines and policies that he and the board had implemented over the past year were actually serving as obstacles to his employees’ best efforts.

How many organizations are in this same position? Do YOU know what you are doing to keep your employees from bringing their best intentions to the job? As we’ve discussed before, employee satisfaction is on a steep decline in the U.S., which impacts the bottom-line at companies all over America.

Could this trend be reversed if more managers and executives spent just a little bit of time to experience their organization from their employees’ perspective? It sure couldn’t hurt… Could this new reality show help people in charge consider doing a little ‘snooping around’ of their own? We can only hope…