The story in the previous Blog shows how one employee was welcomed into a company. Amy is a high achiever who was used to having her efforts recognized and rewarded. She approached her new job with great expectations for herself as well as her employer. 

Because of the way she was treated during the first few weeks, Amy was made to feel like a corporate citizen and was looking forward to a prosperous future with her new employer. 

What made the difference in Amy’s fruitful journey was in how the corporation “greeted” it’s new employees—Amy’s employer did it right.

What Amy’s employer did right was to show her the respect due a newly arrived “immigrant.” They told her what her job was and showed how what she did contributed to the corporation’s goals. They introduced her to the people she’d be working with and made the team’s purpose very clear. 

Corporate citizenship

Corporate citizenship is a bold concept, but one that, in my opinion, is necessary to accept if America is to remain globally competitive. We must stop draining energy by continuously trying to solve nonproductive problems involving management/employee relationships.

Instead we must concentrate our energy on the task of building a healthy organization. 

Here’s a list of the five A’s of corporate citizenship that managers and employees should be able to take on:

Accept the corporate charter and support the purpose of the corporation so they can contribute to the company’s well being.

Admit responsibility for their actions when there is a mistake or failure so the company does not have to waste time looking for the source of the problem elsewhere.

Address problems as they occur rather than wait for an authority figure to act so that people are working their way out of predicaments as they arise, fixing what is wrong before the problem turns into a cesspool polluting everything is touches.

Adhere to the policies, principles and practices that contribute to sound governance so that the company doesn’t have to divert energy policing its employees when they should be policing themselves.

Affirm the rights of all to offer and seek valid criticism so that information is passed directly to the individual who needs it by the individual who can provide it without causing hurt feelings and unnecessary conflict.

To be an effective corporate citizen, a person must practice at least three out of five of these tasks. All five A’s provide an effective structure within which employees can work together cooperatively in conjunction with management.

Another way to view them is that they are a set of guiding principles upon which corporate spirit and commitment can be built. The five A’s can also be used as an objective standard to assess the degree to which of your employees has achieved corporate citizenship and which are in need of more instruction.