Orchid,
Congratulations to Orchid’s own, David Huffman for the article about
him in this month’s AJM magazine. The article is Shop Smarts. In
it, he explains his business philosophy of paying his employees as
much as he can and making them feel like partners in the business. I
realize this flies in the face of modern thinking where companies try
to see how little they can pay their employees. His guys would kill
for him. Not many bosses could say that. I’ve e-mailed David on
several occasions and he’s always willing to take the time to share
his knowledge and experiences with others, even those he’s never met.
Anyway, it’s a well written article and I hope you read it. He shows
a common sense approach to running a business.
James S. Cantrell CMBJ
I love the sound of the way David runs his business. In the future
if I am ever in the same position of employing people I would love
to operate my business in the same way. I am still young but have
worked in so many different workplaces (only a couple in the
jewellery industry) but have always moved on to different jobs as I
felt unvalued and underpaid as an employee and was given no reason
by my employer to be loyal.
Employers constantly complain about lack of loyalty and motivation
in their staff members but they are never prepared to pay employees
any more than they are made to by law (some even operate outside of
the law). Also, I have found that employees that are treated like
children behave like children - such workplaces can be so very
unhappy and unproductive.
My grandfather treated his employees similarly to how David did and
when hard times struck and he was unable to continue employing all
his staff fulltime he struck a deal with them to all work 4 day
weeks so no one was laid off - when the unions came in and told the
workers that they were being poorly treated and that they should
strike they stood firmly by my grandfather and said that he had
never treated them badly and they were involved in the making of the
decision and were happy with it. Later when work picked up everyone
resumed working their 5 day weeks. My grandfather didn’t lose a
single skilled and experienced staff member and no staff member
ended up on dole payments. It was a win win situation.
R.R. Jackson