Undercover Boss aired on CBS after the Super Bowl.  In the first episode, Waste Management, Inc. President Larry O’Donnell worked in several “boots on the ground” jobs in the company: sorting recyclables, cleaning portable bathrooms, riding a garbage collection truck, picking up loose papers on a hillside. He was bone-tired at the end of the first day and got fired for the first time in his life when he couldn’t spear and bag trash fast enough. 

On a micro level, he recognized and rewarded individual workers with great attitudes or difficult work situations.  On a macro level, he was able to see how corporate policies he designed failed (for example, hourly workers were docked two minutes pay for every one minute late — an obvious wage and hour violation– and supervisors monitoring quality control on garbage routes actually gave employees the creeps). 

There are two moments that stuck with me:

• He was “sweating bullets” while sorting trash and cardboard on the recycling line—a mistake could jam the equipment and he knew just how much it cost.
• He realized that the company never thought about garbage truck drivers having to use the bathroom, and how degrading it was for a woman driver to pee in a can she brought because she didn’t have time to stop. 

While many businesses are too small for the boss to be undercover, I think it is invaluable for the C-level executives to observe first-hand what it is like to work at their companies, particularly for a larger organization where the execs did not rise through the ranks. 

I remember when First Union abolished those annoying automatic phone answering machines (push 1 to get your account balance, push 2 to pay a bill, …) when an executive called in and couldn’t get to a live person. 

What do you think would change at your company if your boss spent a day walking in your shoes?

Tags: Larry O'Donnell, Undercover Boss, Waste Management

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Corporate management, business law, small business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.