Hiring Employees Focused on the Bottom Line: Is This the Right Strategy?

By Josh Denton, SIOP Blogger

Recently, I gave ideas to a journalist writing how applicants can demonstrate they are concerned with the bottom line. Granted, people will be concerned about customer service, teamwork, and doing an overall good job. However, the journalist’s angle was informing job seekers how to be seen as bottom-line applicants. Examples he provided were an employee whose role is computer work, but helping other departments by using a forklift, and a CEO modeling good behavior by using public transportation. However, I think this mindset misses a few crucial points.

• Organizations need to have an inclusive culture that encourages positive changes in workplace strategy. This must start with leaders in the organization. Be it a CEO, a middle manager, or a department manager, the strategy is the same: encourage and offer flexibility for employees to fulfill desirable changes.
• Change from merely a profit-driven perspective to a customer-first mindset. Business’ primary purpose is to sell a product or service, not profits. Businesses sell to people, not organizations. Recognizing this is a key to fostering a positive customer experience.
• Reinforce positive employees who take the extra step to follow and, subsequently, lead the way towards positive organizational behaviors.

Limiting to only employees concerned with the bottom line can work so long as their frame of reference is on the organizational vision. With many factors affecting employee performance, choosing only the bottom-line trait will miss describing other traits an applicant or employee has that can help improve the organization’s mission.

As I ended my conversation with the journalist, I made sure to relate one final and extremely important point for the hiring process, whether employees are describing themselves as bottom-line oriented or not: selecting and developing psychologically healthy employees. I believe this to be one of the most important parts of hiring and organizational work. Working towards a positive mindset, stressors are easier to handle and the positive outlook will do wonders for each employee’s and the organization’s bottom line.

Comments

[help with thesis papers]

I can see your position that it was also a forensic finance thriller. Because of your article, I will start to look at movies and still books from an I-O perspective. I'll probably learn more.

[Eric Knudsen]

Your second bold point reminded me of an old article which served as a forum for debate between the CEO of Whole Foods (John Mackey) and a Nobel laureate (Milton Friedman) on whether the true culture and purpose of business is about the customers or the investors. The article was titled "Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business" and published in 2005. I'm inclined to think that this "social responsibility" of business depends on the principles on which the business was created. Some businesses were clearly built for the benefit of our culture and customers, while others function purely to produce more and more efficiently and yield greater and greater profits.

[Will Edwards]

Personally, I believe it comes down not just to the organisational mission, but to the individual's understanding of how (s)he contributes to it. Leave the fork lift truck alone and get on with what you are here to accomplish.

Will :)

[Alex R]

In my experience with work, I notice that it comes down to the extra effort one puts in to their job. A server can take orders from customers, but if the server does not know how the food is prepared he or she will have a harder time explaining what food the customer will be receiving. Another example is if a busboy is able to do his job, and help other workers by running food to tables, he is leveraging other workers so that they can give the customer a better dining experience. Any qualified employee is able to do the bottom line task, finding the employee who will do the extra is the part we need to focus on. Changes in workplace strategy, changing to a customer first mindset, and reinforcing extra work behaviors are all positive ways that an organization should follow if they want to be successful. In the end it comes down to the organizations mission.