The Managing Class Has Failed Frontline Workers
Companies are paying a high cost for neglecting the hardships and aspirations of their hourly employees.
Unhappy campers.
Photographer: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
The management class has done a dismal job of managing frontline workers. These are the people who make, pack and deliver stuff, deal directly with customers, do the grunt work in hospitals and offices, and, particularly in the United States, are paid a wage rather than a salary: what the Bible calls “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”
Managers think about companies as hierarchies with the CEO at the top and the janitor at the bottom. Management theorists agonize about knowledge workers and their fragile egos. A study of how CEOs manage their time by two Harvard Business School luminaries, Michael Porter and Nitin Nohria, found that, on average, CEOs spend just 3% of their time with frontline workers, 6% with customers and 72% in meetings: 3 versus 72!