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Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 1010
Location: over yonder
| Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 5:23 pm Post subject: ugh "Associates" | |||||||||||||||||||
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We should really stop referring to ourselves, our positions, and our co-workers as "associates".
Why? Because, given the usual circumstances, it makes no sense. If you take a look at the dictionary definition of "associate" and then juxtapose it over your role in your employers' enterprise, you'll find that the two don't match up. I'm going to use the definition from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, to illustrate my point. Basically, I'm going to briefly address each definition and see if it applies to your typical retail "associate" position. Hopefully, when I've finished I'll have convinced you that you are not an "associate" of you employer and that the term, in this context, should be abandoned forthwith. In its entirety (meticulously recreated, I might add  ):
Ok, one by one now:
Your typical retail worker is not a "partner" in the enterprise. Partnership implies a common interest and, while you may have a vested interest in the success of your employer, there is little reason to believe that your employer has any vested interest in your success. Your hours are the first things sacrificed when the times are tough on your employer. This is despite the fact the your hours are, in no way, shape or form, responsible for the tough times.
In this instance, "combine" implies a common purpose. While you and your employer have a desire to make money in common, the similarities end there.
Although some of you may own shares or stocks in your employers' enterprise, the minor quantity and value of those shares or stocks makes your participation, thus your "connection", mostly irrelevant to your employer.
When was the last time you sat down with your CEO or the company's stakeholders and waxed philosphical about the company's future? Suggestion boxes, comment cards, and bi-yearly employee surveys don't count.
Ever "joined" a company? You were hired to provide labour in exchange for compensation. This fact alone makes your relationship with your employer more akin to a master/slave relationship than any sort of "union" or "association". If your employer cuts your hours, your wage, or your benefits, can you adjust your performance accordingly without threat of repercussion? Or, do you often find yourself doing the same, or more, for less?
Lacy ever invite you over for some BBQ? Yeah, we've all had store lunches, picnics, baseball tournies' and such, but the management cats you're shotgunning light beer with are not your employers. They have about as much say in the future of the company as you do.
"United" implies mutual action, harmony. To use profit as an example, when you and your employer mutually institute measures in an effort to increase profit (this is a mutual undertaking: your employer could produce the bestest, most mind-blowingly awesome idea to increase revenue EVER but, if you're not there to put those ideas into practice, they aren't worth the paper they're printed on), and profit does increase, does your compensation increase in harmony with your employers or their stakeholders? Is it even proportional?
This is a good one. I believe that this is exactly what labelling employees as "associates" was intended to portray. That you, as an "associate" of the company, are just as, or nearly as important and vital to the enterprise as the majority stakeholders. This, of course, is true. As, without you, the enterprise can't sustain itself. It needs you in order to satisfy its purpose: making money for its stakeholders. However, as soon as we raise the specter of equality and take into consideration the integral and enabling service you provide to the enterprise, it becomes painfully clear that your compensation is woefully unequal. Your compensation is just not commensurate with your role and responsibility to the enterprise. So, to close up my rant, "associates" is clearly not an accurate label. And it's my position that the term should be abandoned immediately and replaced with its predecessor; the more accurate and infinitely more honest "employee". What say you? |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7090
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:02 pm Post subject: | |
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I don't know if anyone has ever noticed (or cared) but I never use the word "associate" in any of my posts, preferring instead to use the term "employee" and for exactly the reasons that sleK has outlined above.
The term "associate" was dreamed up by some motivation geek because he/she thought it would make all those dumbass worker drones work harder because they thought they were actually an important and integral part of something. I'm pretty sure we all learned differently during our associations with Sears. Also, the term "associate" can be, and is in California, sufficient to differentiate between certain types of employees such as commissioned "associates" and hourly "employees". Although the term is used loosely to refer to all employees in normal conversation, it can also be used to determine your rights to things like overtime and even unemployment compensation with the employer quite often attempting to portray commissioned associates as "independent contractors" or some subspecies of such. We were told many times by my last BC manager that we were simply being granted "free" space from Sears to ply our own trade which was selling merchandise Sears also provided to us. We were also paid a percentage of the selling price for our services and as such, we were not actual Sears employees, entitled to overtime pay for the myriad times that we had stayed late to close a sale or provide service to a customer and which could add up to many hours over a period of time. He used the word "associate" to refer to us during those conversations.. Yet he set our hours and assigned various housekeeping tasks, held us to strict schedules and in general treated us no differently than if we had been hourly employees. If questioned about the seeming paradoxes involved he would simply say then that we "worked for Sears" and were "subject to the same requirements as any other Sears employee". So we were "associates" when it suited Sears for us be such and we were "employees" when it suited Sears for us to be that and it always devolved from which whichever was of the most benefit to the company at that particular time. |
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Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Posts: 916
Location: roaming...
| Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 3:00 am Post subject: Re: ugh "Associates" | |||||||
Agreed
While I agree that "employee" is more befitting, the term is hardly a predecessor of anything. "Associate" predates "employee" by a few millennia, give or take a century. I say we go back to the original (real predecessor) - "worker".
say me... must be a slow news day. 
(I wish people had raised half this much commotion over "nucular"  )
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7090
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 3:25 am Post subject: | |
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Since we're on THAT subject now, how about "Arabiac" or better yet, "Canadicans". If we're going to go off on Bushisms we've got fodder for at least a years worth of posts here.
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Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Posts: 64
Location: Canada
| Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 7:21 am Post subject: | |||
Although I disagree with the definition you provide, your interpretation is flawed. Stakeholder is not exclusive to those who hold shares, or stock as our American friends choose to call it. A Stakeholder is anyone who has a stake(vested interest) in the performance of the business. This includes: Employees, shareholders, competitors, suppliers and the community(ies) in which the business operates. Therefore, it is entirely true that the participation of a business' stakeholders(whether one particular person, or a larger group) is of utmost importance and relevance to the way they run their operation. Without the participation of stakeholders, and most importantly out of all of them, the employees, a retail business would fail immediately. Therefore, there is a "connection" regardless of how cynical or jaded you may feel due to experiences with an employer. Now the reason I disagree whole-heartedly with the definition you provided is because it is made using the incorrect definition of "Stakeholder". The reality is that although businesses need employees(one of their stakeholders) to obtain profit, they also want to keep their expenses as low as possible in order to maximize profits. This means that they will compensate at the lowest wage possible without having too great of a backlash. Because retail is such a low skill(let's face it) job these days, people are willing to work for minimum wage or slightly above without causing too much of a stink. For this reason, "The underlying reason of any business is NOT to make money for all its stakeholders". The real reason for a business to exist is to generate cash for its owners, plain and simple. |
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Administrator
Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 1010
Location: over yonder
| Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject: | |||||||||||||||
Semantics, schemantics. You're taking the term "stakeholder" out of context and straight into left field.
I never suggested otherwise. I was simply using shares/stocks as an example of "stakes" that one can hold in an enterprise. I chose that as the example because it is the most relevant, if not the only, method by which employees can exercise their power within a public company.
This is only partially true. Stakeholders are traditionally investors; shareholders, directors, management, suppliers, government, employees, and the community. Keeping a business's primary purpose in mind, (that being making money for it's stakeholders) it's folly to suggest that a business's purpose is to make money for its competitors. The same is true for a business's suppliers. So, while a competitor or supplier may have a vested interest in the performance of a business, their interests, especially in the competitors case, are only corollary to the business's purpose.
Ad-hom much fuckhead? 
I believe that you may have misinterpreted my point. Remember that my goal is to demonstrate the fallacy in the use of the term "associate" in the typical employment context. I did not suggest that there is no "connection". I merely suggested that an employees' "connection", as a stakeholder, is "mostly irrelevant" and thus further belies the use of of the term "associate".
The inclusion of corollary interests in your definition of stakeholder doesn't preclude the truth of the proposition. ***
I like "employee" simply because it's the most accurate. I'd certainly take "worker" over :cringes: "associate" though.
Nah, I just saw someone use it here and I got all fired up about it. 
***
My money says that it's all about the public perception of the business. |
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Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Posts: 64
Location: Canada
| Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:17 pm Post subject: | |||||||
Perhaps I'm part of a minority here. If you ask any company's executives, they will(hopefully) list their employees as the reason for their success. Sorry, Slek, I just can't believe that the employees position as stakeholders is mostly irrelevant. Perhaps just a difference of opinion.
I never made this suggestion to begin with. I beleive I stated that it is not a company's purpose to make money for ALL it's stakeholders. Stated differently(and more coherently), A company operates to generate cash for it's owners. Therefore, if the company is public, it's shareholders would fall under the title of owners. This is the reason I take issue with the original definition, because it seems silly and naiive to think that a business will try to earn all of it's stakeholders cash.
Couldn't resist.
Overall, Slek, I agree this is all an issue of semantics. Just trying to stir the pot, ya know??
-NAz |
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Administrator
Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 1010
Location: over yonder
| Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 11:53 am Post subject: | |||
Insofar far as its ability to influence and shape the direction and evolution of an enterprise, a concept enveloped by the term "associate", yes, indeed an employees position is mostly irrelevant. |
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