Executive Summary

Building A Productive Workforce For Tomorrow

Jeff Stiefler
President & CEO of IDS Financial Services

January 1993

In a service business, where products aren't patentable and where competitors can copy what you do quickly and easily, the only basis on which you can build sustained competitive advantage is by delivering superior quality.

The only way you can deliver superior quality is through a workforce which is motivated to think like owners and empowered to act accordingly. And the only way you can build that kind of workforce is by creating an environment in which your people believe their needs, expectations, and worries are being addressed so they can focus outwardly, on serving clients, rather than inwardly on their own concerns.

Building this kind of environment is so important that it's one of two IDS corporate strategic priorities. One is total quality; the other is something we call Best Place To Work. Our vision is to become the Best Place To Work for people of character, competence, and courage. We believe that's the best way for us to create and sustain competitive advantage and to ensure continued superior business results.

While Best Place To Work has many components three are the most central. First and most important is leadership. Leadership is critical to the success of any business initiative. When you have good leaders in place, anything is possible; when you don't, little is. This is as true for work and family issues as it is for more conventional bottom line business endeavors.

The second major component in our Best Place To Work vision is diversity. We are committed to building a diverse workforce because it's the right thing to do and because it's the smart thing to do.

The third major component of our Best Place To Work vision is our reward system. We know that many work and family issues are rooted in or aggravated by financial pressures. So we feel a responsibility to pay people fairly and competitively.

We've grouped our activities around the major work/ family needs we believe our people have. The first is the need for a convenient information resource. The second need we're addressing is the need to find quality child care. Third, we help give options in terms of how they schedule their time at work.

The fact is that no amount of programmatic spending can substitute for an environment that is user-friendly to people with work and family concerns. Creating that kind of supportive environment is largely cost-free.

More than anything, it requires business leaders to do three things: first, be visible role models -- let employees know that leaders are people, too, with conflicting priorities they're struggling to balance. Second, be empathetic. Understand what people's concerns really are. Don't make people take loyalty oaths that require them to make unreasonable tradeoffs against personal and family priorities. And third, be trusting. Let your people design solutions to the problems they face. They'll do it faster, cheaper, and better than you could.

Excerpts from a speech given at The Work and Family Summit hosted by Governor Arne Carlson.

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