As I have offered in this thread, people that work for me NEVER LEAVE. (and believe me, sometimes I wish they would.) When you come to my office, you can be sure you’ll see the same familiar faces of happy people that love their job and take pride in their work environment. I have gone to medical facilities that you never seen the same front desk person twice and personally, I don’t think that says much for the quality of care you receive there. If they can’t manage to keep their own people happy, how are they going to satisfy patients that can be ill and cranky?
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:217, topic:599333”]
Not letting an employee bring in a chair makes the relationship and environment crystal clear: I’m your boss, not your friend. When you’re here, you will act and look (I notice offices with strict decoration rules also often have strict dress codes) like everybody else. Do the job, don’t make waves, go home at five. If that’s what you’re going for, that’s fine. Just realize a lot of people (like me) would accept a job at a place like that when the economy sucks and jobs are scarce, but they’ll be out the door as soon as things get better.
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I am their boss, not their friend. In 16 years I have never had a personal relationship with my employees. I don’t feel it is appropriate and so far, that policy has served me well.
Being that I have never had someone leave for a better job, I would say you are mistaken. You work for me, you never want to leave. My competitors staff want to work for me, employees that have left to go back to school or relocate want to come back, no one ever leaves. I take care of my people, the environment is friendly, people are well paid, get small kudos as well as large yearly bonuses, I spring for pizza and close early when the whim strikes me. You need to take off to take care of a family matter..go, no questions asked. They are your priority. Are you ill? Here’s full pay, flowers, gifts and a cleaning lady until you’re back on your feet. You need to borrow on vacation time for next year due to an unexpected illness? No problem, we’ll make it happen. Full company paid health, dental, vision and disability. Profit sharing that you don’t have to contribute a dime to and you still get vested in two years. Oh and a company cruise for you and a spouse every five years fully paid. Etc etc etc.
Most people only wish they could work for such a good company. I am proud of my office and proud of my staff who’s individual talents are my greatest asset and I make sure they are happy and they staff. And the new guy wanting a chair isn’t worth upsetting the balance and put a frown on anyone’s face. Skippy can put a pillow under his butt if he wants some extra cushioning.
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:220, topic:599333”]
Doors, windows, and larger offices are limited resources. You can’t easily or cheaply add another one, so you must parcel out carefully who gets them.
An employee bringing a chair from home doesn’t use any of your limited resources and doesn’t cost you any money (in fact, it saves money).
I don’t see them as comparable at all.
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It is all about the perception of prestige and seniority. When you look into an office and one has a big high back leather arm chair and the others have two small task chairs on wheels, don’t you see one as having a more powerful position? How does that make those with seniority feel?
By the way, I haven’t heard a work about either of these requests since I originally posted. He seems very happy in his position and has been doing very well.
I really think a lot of the people responding are responding in terms of professional offices were the outside world doesn’t necessarily need to see the workspace.
When I worked in a small office developing software anything and everything was allowed. Not one person would think twice if I brought a chair in from home. It was a home away from home and I loved it. And, I wouldn’t have enjoyed working there nearly as much if I had a boss that forced me to use a certain chair, use certain shoes, or have a certain setup for my desk. Clients and customers would come by, but it wasn’t a job that served the public directly.
Going by the OP’s description I am assuming this job is in a medical setting with patients who might be in the area. In a medical setting things need to be standardized or things are going to start to look unprofessional and patient’s confidence will be undermined. If the OP were in charge of a bunch of programmers, tech support specialists, scientists, or plenty of other fields I would agree that she/he is being controlling and asking for too much without much reason. Anyone in that type of office can go pound sand if they whined about a chair from home. But, perception is important to a office that is dealing with sick people. In this setting anything that might make things seem less than fully professional should be avoided at all costs. Strengthening this perception of professionalism is far more important than responding to the small requests of individual staff members. As long as the staff as a whole is seeing their ergonomic needs met. (If the chairs they are given aren’t causing back pain, for example.)
I don’t agree that it’s all about office politics (which is what “perception of prestige and seniority” really boils down to). It’s about happy employees.
As I said a few posts ago, I acknowledge that there are people who are more comfortable in a relaxed, personalized environment (a la Apple 1990) and others more comfortable in a rigid, sterile environment (a la IBM 1960). You seem to have found the latter people. I always ended up with the former. We’re both good.
Fascinating – after typing this response, I checked my email and there was a spam message from someplace selling black leather executive office chairs.
I’ve worked at this place! At the time I weighed about 100 lbs and I kept falling asleep because I was so cold.