We Don’t Need Jobs!

The end of another month is here. Every worker will walk to the bank but only a few may do so smiling. While a chunk may be withdrawing their measly salary to pay off their debts only to start another cycle of borrowing, the fat cheques of the few others may be spent on more and more luxuries. The irony of life is that those who work more are oftentimes paid less and those who work less are paid more.

Entrepreneurship is such a great venture but when it is driven by selfishness, it puts everyone at risk. When a few greedy ones use this tool to reach the top, everyone else pays for it. It becomes a fulltime job dealing with such characters because all they think about is how to outwit others for their selfish desires. All they think about is feeding their wants at the expense of the needs of others!

There’s so much talk about everyone getting into entrepreneurship in one way or the other. That’s great. However, what we forget to remind them is that no one ever reaches the top alone. Just as there’s no head without a neck, there’s no employer without his/her employees.

As we dare others to chart the path of entrepreneurship, let’s not forget to add that no employer creates a product/service alone. The premium customers of every business are the employees. When we treat them right, it affects every aspect of the business. We must not forget to remind our wannabe entrepreneurs that we need people to succeed… and after we have succeeded, we should not forget them!

The ultimate goal of every entrepreneur is not to provide jobs― it is to provide well-paying jobs. Anyone can create jobs. What makes a good entrepreneur, however, stand out from the rest is providing a job that won’t be worse than having none. A job is no job if your employees still have the job of searching for another job!

When people say they have provided jobs, the question we should be asking is whether or not they are “hand-to-mouth” jobs. When they pride themselves in the fact that they are putting food on the table of others, we should be wondering if it is not leftover food. We need to move from the level of just providing jobs!

We don’t need jobs. We need jobs that we can really call a job. We don’t just want to be occupied all through the month with little or nothing to show for at the end of the month. We don’t need jobs that will make others richer and us… poorer.

Entrepreneurship is supposed to be driven by the heart, not stomach. When we put ourselves in the shoes of others, we won’t allow them to walk in such. We won’t buy expensive cars for ourselves while we leave them with peanuts that won’t even last them till the next peanuts come. Our human capital should be our priceless capital!

How one treats their staff goes a long way to tell the future of their business. A firm that runs on the wheels of one person’s greed will soon grind to a halt because greed is contagious. Every man or woman in that firm will sooner or later become greedy, too. Call it corruption!

When I see an entrepreneur flaunting their wealth all over the place, I ask myself how well they are paying their staff. It’s utter fraud to be living in luxury when those who made the wealth with you are living in penury. It’s only an irresponsible man who tries to look rich in the eyes of society when his home is starving.

The truest reflection of our wealth is seen in the hearts of those who work for us. The worth we place on our employees is a mirror of our state of wealth. Our greatest investment is an investment into our human capital. When we invest into our human resource, it will yield an overflowing result. If we can’t imagine investing in our staff, we should stop imagining investing in our business because it will yield almost no result.

We need entrepreneurs who know the worth of their staff. We need employers who will travel to the moon and back to give their employees a befitting reward of a salary each month. We need job providers who will appreciate every effort each employee puts into the business. Our businesses can’t grow if the reward system for our employees is not growing either.

We need people-centered leaders, especially entrepreneurs. We need entrepreneurs who will treat others the way they would have loved to be treated if they were in their shoes. We need jobs that will make us feel a part of them. We need jobs that will not only feed our mouths… but our hearts, too. We don’t only need jobs. We need jobs that won’t be the reason we are chasing after more jobs!

Flaunt your wealth on your staff… not on unnecessary stuff. When you hold your staff in high esteem, they hold your business in high esteem, too. When you treat them as junk, your business continues to remain a tabletop one. The surest way of business expansion is to convince your staff beyond doubt that you’ll be there for them just as they always been there for you.

An entrepreneur is like a football coach. A good one will always affect the output of his players. A bad one will always be the reason for the countless losses. We need jobs… but not jobs that will treat us as nothing but jobs!

We need entrepreneurs who understand the golden rule― entrepreneurs who will do for others what they want others to do for them. We don’t need something we can call a job. We need something that is really a job!

The writer is a playwright and Chief Scribe of Scribe Communications (www.scribecommltd.com), a writing company based in Accra. His play TRIBELESS is on Saturday, June 16th, 2018 at National Theatre.