My thoughts and ramblings... - 2 cents of whatever

Just the ramblings and observations of me..

The national I worked for the longest was MDI-MD and it truly was the best compared to everything else I had experienced as far as national companies.  The thing they did best was 1) pay the MT premium pay.  2) Offer bonus incentives that were obtainable frequently if the account was out of TAT which really made the pay nice. And 3) and probably most importantly figured out that for an MT to be productive and successful they needed to NOT be hopping around on all work types and different accounts all day.  You like ops? Okay, you worked ops on an account all day every day and they didn't overstaff the account (upside) but they also counted on you to be there (fair enough).  YES it was boring to do the same dictators all day every day and the same work type but you know what? I could average 350 lph easily because it was so repetitive & I could actually make normals for the docs.  Life was indeed good.  Then, I lost my account mgr. because they were working her to death and the owner flipped out one day evidently (as evidently happened often) and she either quit or was fired.  My new acct. mgr. was drum roll please a former Medquit person.  Now, when I first started working from home, I tried MQ.  Since they are so large, I would guess that practically everybody here has  at one time or another perhaps worked there so I'm not insulting Medquist BUT it seems when you get people from management from that company in your company, things go downhill real fast....I don't know how they could all have such nasty dispositions and complete lack of consideration for other MTs but that has been my experience every time...is there an MQ account mgr. training program they put their people through to make them complete jerks?  I digress but things went from bad to worse for me there after that as she would misconstrue every question, every statement, whatever I said by e-mail and quickly turned the owner against me.  After 5 years, because I needed evidently too much unpaid time off to deal with a family crisis (my father was dying in the hospital), I got the axe.  So I moved on to another company where I've been seen and haven't been on these boards since and I tell you what...I had NO idea what was all going on in this business until I came back on here and have been reading things for the past couple of days.  I had no idea that practically every company had VR now and that MTs were being utilized more as MEs.  Imagine that.  I felt so isolated I'm glad I came back on here and started reading because not only do I not feel so alone and frustrated and clueless but I've also learned that my own company is hiring when they have made no attempts to help me with my requests for more work.  I also found out THEY have VR which I NEVER knew.  Is this crazy or what?  Some people I've read get upset when their companies send out e-mails or do these conference calls and stuff - they just want to be left alone to work BUT I think a company that keeps their employees informed about what is going on is really being considerate.  Offering accounts to their own before they hire outside is another issue of consideration.  Keeping them abreast of where the company is going vision-wise (i.e. VR) is another point of consideration. I see none of that at my current job which is what drove me here to begin with and one should NOT have to learn about their own company on an anonymous board on the internet.

I'm presently back in college (and too old to be there believe me!) but finally decided it was time to do something because I could not take making 600.00 month anymore and all the hospitals around me outsource everything so no jobs to be had.  To me, it's a dying field.  I have felt so unchallenged for so long and isolated at home working (i.e. trying to work, get lines) that it was making my physically sick and so poor I couldn't pay bills - just a desperate feeling.  Well it turns out one of the classes I'm taking is Business 101 because I'm in a massage therapy program and many massage therapists own their own businesses.  I'm learning about business trends (our economy is going to a service industry more than manufacturing which we all knew if anybody knows anybody who worked in a factory that went to Mexico, etc. for cheap labor, etc.) but also learning that for a business to be successful & compete they have to not only make a customer happy they have to "delight" a customer, go the extra mile.  (Think Apple computers - phenominal customer service).  I kinda' laughed to myself when I actually saw this on an MT company website page that they "strive to delight the customer" - good for them, they get it.  The problem comes though for employees with bad leadership and bad management (which are 2 different things).  Mgrs. manage but leaders (usually the owners/top mgmt.) THEY are to set the vision and inspire - as in "this is where we are going and this is how we are going to get there and come on let's go!"  I'm also learning about all kinds of management styles, what works and what doesn't and how to motivate people.  All of this is lacking at most every company here.  Thinking green, benefits that enhance the employees quality of life (flex time, time off for illness or childbirth without losing their jobs), a vision, more importantly a communicated VISION of what the company's core values are, where it is going, etc. & good management that "empowers" employees rather than autocratically dictating to them (and heaven forbid every one of them being on a different page?! that is true fauilure of management and of a company as a whole - that's a ship that is going to sink).  I'm also learning about the downside of business practices though too - it does come down to the almighty $$ but it can be done, companies can make money and their owners become wealthy without trampling over their employees and treating them without dignity or concern. 

This is what I see with these companies here.  Most do not have a mission statement (what are their values? what is their mission? where are they going? how are they getting there?) - they don't keep their employees informed about anything - they hire outside before promoting within - they have too many layers of management and don't trust or empower their employees to get the job done - they don't reward or praise or simply say thank you but focus entirely on negative reinforcement with punishments (pay cuts, lay-offs).  Their MTs are just a faceless # on the payroll.  There are many theories about what motivates employees - most  of it bunk if you ask me and my prof. things so too but for those at the very basic level trying to make it and survive in this economy 9 times out of 10 I said PAY is going to be the motivator followed later by things such as titles and such.  Basic needs have to met first.  I personally think a company can turn a great profit & still pay the MTs a fair wage (more than 7-8 cpl) because if you PAY your MTs well? guess what? you are going to get the best & they ARE going to work, work hard, do it right the first time and you are going to DELIGHT the customer and have more work than you can handle VR/off-shore whatever comes. Employers CAN ENABLE their MTs for SUCCESS!  Figure out how to help them be more productive and do it!  If it means teams working on one work type all day then so be it!  It totally worked at MDI and I hardly ever heard a bad thing on here about that company back then (and the rare ones were stories like mine, bad mgmt got in the door and soured the team motivation, etc. so personal things) and why? Because their employees were busy working and making good pay, being rewarded with bonuses, they had no time and that's true.  True story I didn't know the company didn't exist any longer until just a couple days ago when I came on this board.  (I've nothing but love for ya' Dorothy even though you fired me - I hope your sunning on a yacht somewhere, you deserve it! You were visionary in how you ran that company!)

I suggest this formula - less MTs, the best MTs, great pay, empowerment to make decisions on the spot with regard to their work, less middle management, and working them in a way that makes sense! A way they can be productive, which is a profit for you so EVERYBODY WINS!  Not the present attitude of let's hire (i.e.over-hire) hundreds or dozens of MTs, don't trust them, hire a bunch of management who are NOT uniform in their expectations (the vision again-"how we are getting there") to over-see the work (which is often mediocre because of poor training, over-hiring, low pay (you get what you pay for!) and then punish THEM, causing them to quit or be fired so more money can be wasted in high turn-over, just to recruit a bunch more to under-pay & mis-treat them, which won't inspire them to do go work or work hard or be productive, let them all fight it out to get work to meet their basic production commitments to pay their bills and then have too much mgmt on the payroll still to try to correct bad quality on the back end...wth? It goes in full circle.  That's a crazy business philosophy - bad vision, bad management...

It is about getting the right people on the ship and the wrong people off - tough thing for even me to say but it's true - BUT a company has to treat their employees like the valuable resource they are and people will want to work there, they will get the best of the best, low turn-over, inspired and dedicated workers and a good reputation and "delighted" customers.  It's that simple.

As I learn more these are the things I'm looking for in a company (until I can get through school and do my own thing).  I don't want to be a number on somebody's payroll in a poorly managed non-visionary sinking ship of a company.  It's hard to find.  But I will one thing -- I see a lot of posts about one company here as not being too great in how they're treating people lately & complaints of low work volumes but I do see they have a mission statement (terrific start!) wonder if it is communicated to the employees, emphasized and exemplied by the tops and mgmt for the employees to model?  They are thinking green which is very big in business today - to care and make a contribution somehow to the environment & to go above and beyond with their benefits (paid time off to have a baby? unheard of)  Pay, I hear, is slightly above industry standards (i.e. more than 8cpl) so that isn't fantastic but going in the right direction at least.  I have no idea how they're managed though or how they enable MTs to be productive or if they do but I plan to find out.  At the very least, I can say at least in theory they are abreast of trends in business and have set an example of what successful companies should have as their foundation. 

Sorry to blabber on - just things I am thinking as I'm reading posts and learning about business.  Maybe I should be glad my company left me in the dark and ignore me - otherwise I wouldn't be here and be in school, taking control of my life back, learning about business and what is good practice, what is bad, what I want now that I can make an informed decision and making my own luck instead of waiting for somebody to care about me and give me some work.  Not going to happen at most of these companies - they're getting paid and totally out of touch with struggling MTs...personally I hope they all go under!  and I'll tell you why - if successful business is about getting the right workers on the ship and the bad ones off then the success of the industry needs to be "get the bad ones out and the good ones in".  I realize these are desperate times, personally struggling myself, but until we stand up and refuse substandard wages and substandard treatment we are part of our own problem - we are lining the pockets of companies that don't deserve to be in business.  If everybody leaves the bad ones, they'll go under and the companies scrambling for the contracts will have to learn sooner or later lean that they have no work force (in the US at least) until they pay them and treat them with respect!  Just my dream....