Recently I read an article titled “What the ‘Best Companies
to Work For’ Do Differently” (*1). The things that they identified as common
themes included:
·
Put People First
·
Help Workers Find and Pursue Their Passions
·
Bring People Together on a Personal Level
·
Empower People to Own Their Work
·
Create a Space Where People Can Be Themselves
There were several aspects of this article that reminded me
of many of the earlier years of my employment at Air Products (*2, *3). In
particular, I recall a former chairman of the company who encouraged being an
intrapreneur within the company. His definition of an intrapreneur was “one who
interprets the boundaries of their job description liberally.” This really
resonated with me and was one of the reasons why I enjoyed working for Air
Products. Let me give a few examples.
At one point, I had the position of Managing Analyst. This
was a first-level supervisory position where I was supervising the people and
projects in a particular functional area. But I had noticed that the groups
just down the hall from me were working on a number of large projects and could
benefit from the experience that I had in putting together large, complex
systems. I started getting to know those individuals and informally helping
them when I could. I documented what I was doing in my weekly “work report” to
my manager (these were shared among the various managers as well). Several
weeks later, I was called into my manager’s office. He informed me that IT
management was considering creating a new position called a “Systems Assurance
Manager” (SAM for short) which would have no people management responsibilities,
but which would work across an entirely functional area of multiple projects and
groups. He named the individual that they had been considering for that
position, but then said that because I had already, on my own, identified the
need for such a role within that group down the hall that they had decided to
give the position to me instead! So, on rather short notice, what had started
out as my own personal interest became the focus of my career.
Fast forward about 15 years. I had been sounding the alarm
about the issues related to the date rollover from 1999 to 2000 (known
popularly as Y2K) ever since the early 1980s when I had written a collection of
date subroutines that we could include in many of our programs and which would
insulate those programs from the impact of Y2K. But there were many places that
these subroutines were not used that were still vulnerable. Finally, management
gave in to my request and authorized a small project to rehabilitate one large
system and document the results. When they read my report on what would have
gone wrong if nothing had been done, they took action and created an entire team
of people to do the necessary rehabilitation across all our systems. I was
given responsibility for all the systems in the Gases Group (over 50% of the
company sales).
Part of that was the responsibility for the international
locations in several countries. While we found few errors in this sector, I did
get to travel to many different countries to oversee any investigation and rehabilitation.
At the beginning of 2000, the clock rolled over, and although we still as a
company experienced a number of smaller issues, we had successfully averted the
disaster it would have been otherwise. But then the next project for me became
known. Air Products was looking to acquire the operations of BOC in the US and
many of its international operations as well (*4). There was a whole team of
people putting plans together for the US operations, and I got selected to work
on the other 30+ countries (just myself and one other person!). Having informed
myself on all the APCI international operations, I was able to put together a
plan for this entire sector. The acquisition was eventually nixed by the FTC,
but my knowledge of the international sector had gotten noticed. So following
the shutting down of the acquisition team, I found myself being appointed as
the IT Account Manager for all our international operations (except western Europe
where we had a large IT group). Under my responsibility were eastern/northern/southern
Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. This was the final
position in my career at APCI.
Much like the above article indicated, when a company
empowers their employees it can create an atmosphere where people enjoy coming
to work. That was certainly true in my case where I carved out my own unique career
path with the encouragement of management – to both my benefit and the company’s.
I stated many times during my career that I had no plans for when I might
retire and that I would keep working as long as it was still “fun”.
But I suppose that all good things must come to an end. When
the company changed from a focus on their employees to one that emphasized “quality”
that eliminated “waste”, standardized their operating principles, and no longer
allowed for the creativity that had defined us for so many years, the “fun”
disappeared. APCI was no longer one of the “best companies to work for” and I,
along with many of my long-term compatriots made the decision to leave – in my
case “retiring” even though I was only 58.
The above article was right – there are a number of things
which the “best companies to work for” do differently and most of them can be
traced to certain principles. I suppose I was fortunate to work for a company
where work was enjoyable. But when the enjoyment ended, I could no longer see
myself working there.
Notes
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