Chapter 1
"Raising Expectations"
The Globe And Mail, 31/10/06 11:09 AMhttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061031.wraise1028/BNStory/specialSmallBusiness/home


This article is about a lot of employees in small businesses want a raise since it is getting close to a new year, but the company owners do not have the money to give those raises. This will definitely creates an unsatisfied demand of higher wages, and the company owners have no idea how to deal with this situation. The reason why company owners can't give their employees raises is due to none other than the fact that the business isn't good enough. It is hard for the owners to break the news already, yet they, as owners, must also be responsible for workers' continuing disappointment and as well as their fear of the difficulty for their business. One thing you should never do is to tell your employees that you will give them a raise as soon as possible, because you might not have enough money to do so in another five years. Then you are just giving them false hope, which will lead to more problems and they might get even more disappointed.



Relation to Chapter 1


Employee is considered as a scarce resource (labour). From the above article, it talks about how employees want raises when a new year comes. If owners do not give raise, then their employees will quit their jobs because of the disappointment of not getting a raise. When that happens will create a huge impact for businesses because of the lack of workers to operate businesses, which will then lead to businesses failure. Failure of businesses will affect the economy by driving up the unemployment rate, and then people will spend less because there won’t be as much people earning money. Also, when there are more people unemployed, then the government will have to take care of those people. In my opinion, to break the bad news to your employees is a kind of skills. You have to tell them in a way to make them pity you, yet have not such a big disappointment. As mentioned in the article, it would be nice if you could talk to every single employee face to face as the owner and tell them about the difficulties you’re having right now.