In high school, it was explained to me how Japanese companies treated employees like family, building relationships and earning trust that led many workers to spend a lifetime with just a single employer. Amazing.
Bexolon Healthcare in Chicago was my employer out of college. All the new-hire computer programmers in the Information Technology (IT) department went through an introductory training class for three summer months, where they taught us the technical environment at Bexolon and tested our COBOL programming skills so we were ready to join our teams in the fall. It was soon apparent that Marcia was the best—even better than me.
Imagine my shock when Marcia was fired only a few months later. Why? Layoffs. But why would they lay off the best person in our class rather than the worst? Faith still had her job. What was going on?
It was then I understood that American companies did not believe in the supposed business values of the Japanese. America’s senior executives believed in profits, not people. Bexolon’s policy was to simply dismiss the last person to join each team, regardless of performance. A thoughtful, fair, and reasonable policy established by trustworthy leaders who cared about each and every employee—not.