Company CEOs need to get over this notion of the employees who work in the company they also work for, being described as “family.”
Its flimsy and ill conceived marketing trite. An attempt to lure in employees with warm words and empty promises.
If CEOs wish to use that kind of language, then let’s see the details of what makes you a family. Post it on your website, with the details. Show your employee survey results, with the answer to the question “As an employee of this company, I can honestly say that we feel like a family.”
Why does it matter? Because we will never properly evolve the world of work unless we are honest about what it is; a transactional relationship between company owners (could be shareholders) and their representatives (management and boards) and others, whereby individuals are paid money to work on various processes that enable the delivery of products and services to the companies customers.
Once we get that definition right, we can have a meaningful debate about how to enable that effectively. When we muddy the water with words like family, and the multitude of other trite terms that company communicators have developed, we focus our attention on the wrong things. We create ridiculous social norms and expectations regarding what work is, what it means to work, and what financial and non-financial transactions need to be in place between all parties, to enable the right work to be done in the right way.
What do you think?