Diversity & Discrimination: Multi-class society in the company

The more a “we-here group” stands out from a “the-there group”, the more intense the feeling of social identification. And the more dangerous are exclusion mechanisms. Many already have to Companys in front of a multi-class society Workplace beware.

The defibration of working models

In addition to a core workforce in conventional employment relationships, many companies are increasingly collaborating without a traditional employment contract: in projects, with freelancers, with temporary employment agencies, with interim managers. There are more fixed-term contracts and also a larger number of cooperating specialists, suppliers and business partners.

This shredding of working models brings both advantages and disadvantages to employers and employees. Sociologically speaking, something like a new multi-class society emerges: on the one hand, the core workforce with a “fixed” employment contract, on the other hand, the group of external employees who are either paid very well or very poorly.

The Shamrock organization

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The Irish economic and social philosopher Charles Handy described this development years ago. He used the Irish national emblem as a symbol, a three-leaf clover (shamrock). The ShamrockOrganization based on the following elements:

• the core team around the management,
• external experts and outsourced areas,
• if necessary, bought “simple” employees.

If you look closely today, there is even a fourth “leaf”: the group of employees customerswho through her Commitment help companies get better. For providers who actively use this workforce, this results in a multitude of value-added advantages. I reported on this in detail in my book “Touchpoints”.

The thing with the social prestige

"If you don't have a permanent job, you're second class," someone who should know once said to me. He lost his permanent job and returned to his old job through a temp agency. Not just the lesser salary hurt him. He noticed from many small signs that he no longer really belonged. The loss of identification and social prestige bothered him more than money cuts at the end of the month.

But this is completely normal in manufacturing companies: a permanent employee works with pay above the standard pay scale Hand in hand with a works contractor at the lowest level of remuneration.

External: None of us

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And it is paradoxical: The person who bears the highest risk of dismissal and gives the company the greatest flexibility is paid the worst. Even worse: the party has access to all operational amenities, the external party does not. Because of his differently designed work clothes, he can be recognized as “none of us”.

Nevertheless, routine work that cannot be automated is increasingly outsourced to service providers and bought back cheaply. what itself Executives - Quite apart from the topic of fairness - with such "human chess" you have to ask: How do you integrate and motivate such Employees? And how do you ask for surethat it im Team does not come to a bad pecking order?

Flammable substance: the internal “caste system”

"With increasing volatility in the working society, the proportion of people at risk of slipping, marginalized and underprivileged - in a word precarious," analyzes the Zukunftsinstitut. "Even if they struggle to appear as hard-working employees, they are the first to be on the list of things to do when it comes to restructuring and rationalization measures."

And the precarious situation extends to middle management. Everything that computers can do is systematically rationalized away. Only the difficult, the individual, the tailor-made and the special remain in the working area of ​​the People. Even former experts whose Background now everyone im Internet found, are demoted to henchmen.

Thus, the gap between professionally well and poorly placed people is growing ever further. And while a pseudo-controlled cost-savings program can be celebrated at the top, a new caste system is emerging at the very bottom. If, however, the social gap between people becomes too great, tumors are a foreseeable consequence.

A constant coming and going

A second caste is the one with the fixed-term employment contracts, which will be temporarily discontinued and released again. There is a constant coming and going in such places. This fluctuation soon burdens everyone in the department. Every time new people have to be trained. Of course, all kinds of mistakes are made by the long-term ones.

Customers are scared off because of a lack of professional competence or because there are problems with reliability. A handover between those who leave after a short time and the new ones does not take place. At some point nobody has anymore Lustto explain the same things over and over again. And the increasingly frustrated customers are finally turning away - not to mention a deteriorating reputation in the market.

In light of the above, the short-term cost-saving effects from fixed-term employment contracts usually do not outweigh the long-term opportunity costs that can be calculated. Will be used in your organization clear required by those responsible that these Costs should be duly included in the calculation? And how do you ensure that temporary employees, if possible fast become productive without frustrating core staff?

Integrate external knowledge workers

A third caste are the external specialists who work on projects. The added value they bring is sometimes enormous. However, many employees have had bad experiences with such people. Hordes of advisers buzzed through them like a swarm of hornets Company and checked everything for process streamlining and cost efficiency. Afterwards, twice as much work had to be done with half as many people. This was then called work intensification.

The learnings from the employee's view: You can not deal with external ones cautiously enough. The best way to get the most needed price is to keep track of information. Requested work is second-rate and third-grade done, time lines are disregarded. They only cooperate with each other and hope that the spook will soon be over. Such prior experience can severely burden the cooperation between the internal and the external. The upper ones often do not have much thought about this.

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