Perfect Pitch: You Are The Work Beneath My Wings

Oddly enough, the closing moments of a wedding ceremony as a metaphor for good communication at the workplace. After reading a recent contribution to my always interesting "Change Management Network" listserv, I realize there is another aspect of marriage that can lend itself to a business interpretation: the vows. The listserv post explored the topic of “recruiting the employer,” a counterintuitive idea that immediately creates an image of flipping the recruitment process on its head. And since I am someone who spends his days recruiting employees, and who very much enjoys flipping things on their heads, this notion intrigued me.

Hence, the idea of putting the onus not on the prospective job holder, but on the company that is considering doing the hiring. What are they offering besides the usual competitive salary and benefits and buzzword-laden reasons why their organization provides a challenging work environment? 

Every company enters into a hopefully long-term arrangement with their new hires, and it is most certainly a kind of marriage. Therefore, a commitment ceremony is certainly in order, and since the fashion these days is for couples to write their own vows, we can imagine that the new employee will promise loyalty and hard work and innovation and team playerdom. (Hey, if you can’t invent words in a commitment ceremony, when can you invent words?)

But what of the company doing the hiring? What might their marriage vows contain?  Here is a hypothetical example.

To Our New Hire:

·        We never thought someone like you would come along.

·        A good friend.

·        A trusted confidante.

·        Excellent in all you do.

·        We will honor this excellence in many ways.

·        We promise to never frustrate you with our tendency toward bureaucracy, which can create a work environment in which all the decisions appear to be made by highly trained gibbons.

·        We promise we won’t expect you to work yourself into the grave for us, and that we won’t make you feel like a loser for wanting to take the occasional weekend with your family.

·        We will have senses of humor. We realize how important this is because working for people who do not know how to make fun of themselves is tantamount to working for soulless robots.

·        As you come to work for us, remember our core beliefs in beginning this relationship:

Work is patient, work is kind.

Work does not envy

Work does not boast

Work is not proud.

Work is not rude

Work is not self-seeking,

Work is not easily angered.

Work keeps no record of wrongs.

Work does not delight in evil.
Work rejoices with the truth.

Work always protects,
Always trusts,
Always hopes,
Always perseveres....

This is a heck of a good start, new employer. I would definitely work for you, and I suspect all my clients would, too.  So the only question remaining is, “who giveth this employee to be married to this job?” May the best man (or woman) win.