Undercover Boss - What lessons can be learned?

On February 7, 2010 CBS premiered Undercover Boss. No, I don’t watch it (nor do I follow other reality programs) but the premise intrigued me.

On the off-chance you have not heard of the program, the format is as follows: A high-ranking executive or owner of a corporation goes undercover in his own company as an entry-level employee (after altering his appearance, assuming an alias and a fictional back-story). With a camera crew in tow, the executive is followed on his day-to-day activities while being filmed as “part of a documentary” about workers in that particular industry. (All hype aside, how many employees are going to really be themselves in front of a camera crew? Sorry, I’m off target here.)

If you went undercover in your own organization, what would you discover? What would your employees say? Would they speak highly of the organization? Or poorly? Would they take pride in their jobs? Would they feel that their contributions were being recognized?

In the business world there are CEOs that have worked his/her way up through the ranks of the organization. He/she understands the business, the people, the processes, the policies and the problems. On the other side of the coin there are CEOs that have not had the opportunity to grow with the organization he/she now runs. Lacking that background and experience, oftentimes there is no true understanding of the company and its employees.

For an executive to go undercover in the workplace it offers him/her the opportunity to see first-hand how the company, from the bottom-up, functions. Stepping from the corner office down into the trenches allows him/her to see how changing policies, restructuring, job consolidations, etc. impact the organization and the people. The executive can take what he/she has learned from the experience and create positive change in the workplace. 99.9% of the time his/her perception of the business is different from that of the front-line employees. He/she can experience first-hand what is working and what isn’t, discovering where and who the true company “resources” are. Identify the talent – know who those individuals are - and cultivate them.

The same approach can be said for the HR Directors, managers and generalists in the workforce. TAKE a proactive look at the organization and people you support. TAKE the opportunity on an on-going, regular basis to fill the role of a front-line employee. I had the privilege on a couple of occasions to work side by side with the employees in the bindery department of a commercial printing company. It provided me with a better understanding of the roles these individuals played within the organization, the challenges they faced, and assisted me in developing a deeper appreciation of the contribution of each and every employee.

Are there lessons to be learned? Yes, I believe there are.