HOW TO PUT AN END TO THE CORRUPTION CYCLE BETWEEN THE EMPLOYEE AND THE EMPLOYER IN COLOMBIA
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- The document discusses corruption between employees and employers in Colombia and describes one man's experience addressing this issue. - As the commercial director of a company, he implemented a plan to stop employee theft and develop trust. This revealed that employees felt underappreciated and exploited, fueling the corruption cycle. - His recommendations for improved compensation and customer service departments were rejected. He later discovered the owner was abusing employees and involved in tax evasion, showing a lack of business ethics. He resigned to protect his integrity. - The author believes narrowing Colombia's wealth gap and prioritizing ethics in business is key to reducing corruption.
HOW TO PUT AN END TO THE CORRUPTION CYCLE BETWEEN THE EMPLOYEE AND THE EMPLOYER IN COLOMBIA
- 1. Juan A. Florez September 14,2017 HOW TO PUT AN END TO THE CORRUPTION CYCLE BETWEEN EMPLOYEE AND EMPLOYER IN COLOMBIA. Colombia has been an attractive country to many multinationals; its popularity took fly in the year 2006, with the signing of the free trade agreement with the USA. Its strategic location with in Latin America and the affordable and capable work force were strong reasons to establish their LATAM headquarters in the country. Nevertheless, most firms have fall victims of a socioeconomic problem that permeates into the deepest roots of its culture; corruption.
- 2. The corruption has been one of the issues that most companies face as they try to enter the country and unfortunately many of them have fallen into the never ending cycle and chose to pay to do business. The Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht involved in one of the largest global corruption scandal ever is a clear example that red tape is a well-known practice and reaches high places within our governments. Today, I like to share my experience with the corruption at the work place; while at the same time, I like to spread a message of hope to those professionals and directors that have to deal with this phenomenon that affects every industry and share what I think is the main factor causing this anomaly. More importantly, I like to share what I believe to be the solution. In my last assignment as a commercial director, one of the main tasks given was to put a stop to the fact that employees were stealing clients, time, money or goods from the company. In my research I learned that most of the employees that were suspected of participating in such acts, in fact, were acting like this in a form of rebellion; since they felt that the company was doing it to them they had to do it in return, and is here where the corruption cycle begins. The main goal as I initiated my investigation and due diligence, was to develop a more capable, and versatile sales department; and in order to make it so, I needed to find out what exactly was holding the company from becoming a more corporate entity and stop operating as a disorganized Mom & Pop´s business. I knew that to do so we had to start making changes that will prompt us in that direction. In my initial research, which consisted of listening to the main parties (the ownership, the work force, past and existing clients) we discovered that the rabbit hold when deeper of what I expected. The inside information acquired from the sources lead me to one of the main causes of discomfort and help me to develop a strategy to resolve this situation. The first part took over two months and it leads us to realize that the company was experiencing a massive exodus of clients because they were not receiving the attention they deserved, and fixing this situation became one of our priorities; but all point out directly to the fact that a very low sense of pertinence among the employees existed and in order to come to a meeting of the minds and change this work environment, I had to develop a compensation plan that benefited the employees not only monetarily but psychologically ; Since most of the employees did not feel appreciated or motivated; instead felt exploited.
- 3. Since, we look at these types of scenarios, with the seriousness a surgeon should analyze a patient brought into their operating room; we felt that it was fundamental to develop a corrective and integral plan of action, design to overcome all obstacles, and continue to monitor all phases that the industry could manifest to the company. It became obvious during our research that we needed to stop the bleeding by minimizing the massive exodus of clients that the company was experiencing at the time of my arrival. That’s why the second part of the plan also included it listening to the active and inactive clients, this part of the research demanded the creation of two new departments and the unrestricted use of the entire data base of clients that the company had acquired since they went on business ; but unfortunately the administration never supply such list nor the approval to create a customer service department or quality control department, which I thought were necessary in order to find out the true cause of desertion among the clients and put in place a contingency plan to stop it; but instead, once more we received nothing, just like when we ask for the financial reports needed to do a complete financial analysis of the company; it never came to surface. With the creation of this two departments we intended to minimized or stop the exodus of existing clients and help regain those clients that had stop using our services and products. It will also help to put in practice a preventive and quick reaction plan design to close this gap and star regaining clients trust, taking under consideration that is easier and more cost effective to recover past clients, than to find new ones; since companies could easily spend at least 10% of their profits into it. At this interception is where I came across one of the most recent case studies released by Federick F. Reichheld, a renowned business strategist. He points out how to deal with this type of situations, and I did my best to integrate some of his philosophy and advice into to my plan of action even though , that within the paper a warning to the reader manifested that conducting this type of analysis in any company, could offer some resistance from other directors or even other high ranking employees which may perceive it as an external treat, generating some risk especially for those conducting the analysis. The warning that Dr. Reichheld had mentioned on his paper became a reality, but of course it was not his fault, his paper was designed for companies in the U.S. Even some relatives and fellow associates call me crazy and advise me to keep quiet if I wanted to keep my employment and even my own life; they told me I had to lay low; because unfortunately here in Colombia being honest can cost you more than a job. It was strange to find associates and other professionals telling me that this politics may work only in the US and that they wouldn’t work here in Colombia, and of course, I refuse to believe that. I continue pushing forward, as any honest entrepreneur with a little bit of character and ethics would have done. My argument is, and always will be, that ethics are needed more in Colombia that on any other part of the world and that now of days being ethical is a rare but necessary quality in order to succeed in the business world in the long run.
- 4. Since; our due- diligence was to our client we did not paid much attention to the constant attacks and cons presented by some employees ; at least not until it became clear that the main resistance was coming all the way from the top, and some relatives of the owner that hold key positions within the company . On the other hand; I realized that there was no real leadership in the company and instead selfishness reign. Per example, all employees were giving contracts for no longer than six months in order to avoid paying them vacations and other benefits they will be entitled under the law, some of them were not even given a contract at all, and those who were given one, were reported as receiving only the minimum wage instead of the full pay, because this way the company could save some money; an prevent their employees from obtaining a student or home loan, directly affecting their way of living. I wanted to put in place politics to change this around, what I did not expected was that the owner would not do anything about it and instead will retaliate against those that promoted this idea. All these actions lead me to realize that the reason why I never received the financial stamens was because there were discrepancies that I was not meant to find out; but that eventually came to light during my last month of work, were I discover that the owner was not only abusing of its employees job security and wellbeing, but that they also were involved in the evasion of taxes and laundering of money for others; a very common practice in Colombia. This alone gave me more than enough reasons to depart ways and made it clear to me that it had to do so in order to protect my own career and my integrity and therefore I decided that my job there was done and immediately presented my resignation. I an occasion the owner said to me personally that he wanted to let go of some personal (around 50% of its employees and affect 50 families without remorse) in order to purchase another $300,000 thousand dollar vehicle, but he was cut in a huge scandal of physically abusing his mistress a cheerleader of the soccer team of the region; case that hit the news and media, putting off his plans of buying the car he wanted; but speeding the massive fairing of his employees anyway. I don’t know if he did it because of bad financial decisions or because he wanted to continue living an over-luxurious life style, instead of investing in the future of the company and the well-being of its employees. It was clear to me that these acts and the lack of professionalism and business ethics more than likely will cause the speed decline of the company and more than likely take them out of business.
- 5. At this point; I arrived at the conclusion that sometimes is best not to be employed by a company in particular, and that being independent gives us the liberty to choose a different path if deem necessary; in particular, if you realize that the company does not comply with your principals and instead behaves unethically. One thing I have always perceive since I started investing and working with Colombian companies; is that the labor is not well compensated and that a huge gap exists between the rich and the poor and until this gap is not narrowed down, we will continue to experience corruption. As the new leaders of the business world, I urge my colleges that somehow we most incorporate ethics, and character to our carriers; this is the only way we can solve the corruption problem that we face in our industries here in Colombia. I know for a fact now that more than a necessity, is our responsibility towards our society to integrated honest leadership into our day to day activities. The key to succeed in this endeavor and to stop this negative cycle in the Colombian institutions in general must include the development of ways to protect and value human capital. Thank you for sharing and please comment.