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Labor Shortage and Quality of Customer Service

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October 11, 2021, 12:58 PM
Kevmo
Labor Shortage and Quality of Customer Service
First off, there is no actual shortage of labor, there is however a shortage of people with a damn work ethic that want to earn their keep every day...

That said, I have noticed, especially in the service industry that many of the employees I encounter simply doing not give a shit about the quality of the work they do as kinda know they have their employer by the balls.
October 11, 2021, 02:15 PM
joatmonv
quote:
Originally posted by Kevmo:
First off, there is no actual shortage of labor, there is however a shortage of people with a damn work ethic that want to earn their keep every day...

That said, I have noticed, especially in the service industry that many of the employees I encounter simply doing not give a shit about the quality of the work they do as kinda know they have their employer by the balls.


Agreed to a point. It's not just work ethic involved here, there's a lot of things in play including the vaccine mandates.

My company only employs about 50 people between 2 shifts so I don't have to force anyone to get the shot. If they want to, that's their decision and some have. What I've been getting in the past 2 weeks are people leaving the bigger factories/plants because they don't want to get the shot. I had quite a few tell me face to face.
Here's my problem. I can't match what they were making sometimes. Some I'm competitive with but some are beyond my level of pay. This is a family business and even though we have business nationally, I can't match some.
So they leave and say they'll just collect unemployment. What? Alright.
The ones I do have and newer temps is a struggle because you're right, they do have me by the balls. What I'm doing now is coaching/training/building up who I can. They seem to want to work because they show up everyday. I'm also trying to impress upon the fact that if I lose money because of poor product quality, how am I supposed to give raises? If I don't make money, they won't either.
Right now is just a huge clusterfuck of things and I'm doing the best I can.


I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I'm not.
October 11, 2021, 02:46 PM
smschulz
quote:
Originally posted by Kevmo:
First off, there is no actual shortage of labor, there is however a shortage of people with a damn work ethic that want to earn their keep every day...

That said, I have noticed, especially in the service industry that many of the employees I encounter simply doing not give a shit about the quality of the work they do as kinda know they have their employer by the balls.


No doubt the Generations today do not have the same work ethic, you used to have to work to survive but with the entitlement mentality propagated by the Government and others it will continue.

However, as an owner/operator/manager/etc it is up to you to figure it out.
You can blame the worker but ultimately it is your responsibility to make it happen.
Sadly it is not necessarily right but those are the facts.
October 11, 2021, 03:42 PM
fiasconva
I agree to a point but I noticed that many of those service industry people didn't give a shit about the quality of their work before the shortage. That's why they bounced from minimum wage job to minimum wage job frequently.



"Even if the world were perfect it wouldn't be." ... Yogi Berra
October 11, 2021, 06:43 PM
ZSMICHAEL
quote:
However, as an owner/operator/manager/etc it is up to you to figure it out.
You can blame the worker but ultimately it is your responsibility to make it happen.
Sadly it is not necessarily right but those are the facts.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You are correct. I could not have predicted the hassles and challenges that I have had in my forty two years of running an independent business. When you figure it out it is a great feeling. I do not eat fast food so have not personally run into disgruntled employees.
October 11, 2021, 08:13 PM
Leemur
Even worse, the people that do care are burned out from carrying the load.
October 11, 2021, 09:06 PM
marksman41
To give some credit to customer service reps., society as a whole seems to be a lot less civil and polite than in previous generations, and that includes customers. It wears on one when the customer(s) feel they're entitled to be rude, condescending assholes while you're trying to resolve their issue. Get that a few times a day and I can see where one's desire to do more than the minimum isn't there anymore.




October 12, 2021, 08:25 AM
dgshooter
quote:
Originally posted by marksman41:
To give some credit to customer service reps., society as a whole seems to be a lot less civil and polite than in previous generations, and that includes customers. It wears on one when the customer(s) feel they're entitled to be rude, condescending assholes while you're trying to resolve their issue. Get that a few times a day and I can see where one's desire to do more than the minimum isn't there anymore.


I'm officially retired, but I do work part time as a customer service rep for a national outdoors company. I answer phones and help deal with customer issues. Most of the folks I deal with are pleasant and are a joy to help. There are others who think the way to get what they want is to be as nasty as possible. Doesn't motivate me to do my best work for them.
October 12, 2021, 08:49 AM
dking271
Add to all that has been said, a whole generation of young people that work starts at an ‘ish’ time of day. I had a recent college grad stay with us after just starting his first real job while waiting to get into an apartment. He was working remote as was I and I asked him what time he was required to start his day. His response was 8am ‘ish’. So on week two of his new job, I had left my office about 8:25 to refill my coffee and noticed he wasn’t up and working. I went down to the guest room and woke him to let him know the time and his response was he didn’t sleep well so he decided sleep in a little.


_________________________
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last” - Winston Churchil
October 24, 2021, 02:32 PM
Merldizzle
Apathy is killing everything
October 26, 2021, 04:56 PM
sjtill
quote:
Apathy is killing everything


Who cares?


_________________________
“ What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.”— Lord Melbourne