A lot of people think of tenure as the idea of a person being “tenured”. This is not true. A tenure is a person’s position in a work organization. The first time you’re hired, you’re not a “tenured employee”. Later on, however, you do become a “tenured employee”.
There are two distinct types of tenure: tenure in service and tenure in the workplace. The first is a person being hired to work for you. The second is a person being hired by you. A person is allowed to work any hours they want, but can’t take a paid day off. You can’t fire someone who is tenured, but you can fire someone who just isn’t performing.
The first thing that is common in both tenured and non-tenured employees is that they are expected to be on a certain level of performance. In service you dont have to be the fastest car on the scene. Your boss expects you to be the best person you can be. The same is true of your boss, and in the workplace, your coworkers expect you to be the best you can be.
It is true that tenured employees are expected to be a certain level of performance, but not all tenured employees are really that talented. In fact, you will want to be a good employee even if you are not a tenured employee. Tenured employees are highly paid, and have been there for a while. They are usually expected to be the best they can be.
The problem is that many employees who are not tenured are generally considered “not-proper” employees. Most managers tend to only hire those who are already highly-credentialed in their field. This often leads to the employee being promoted faster (which is more effective at closing the gap between the two groups) than if those who are not tenured are not considered.
We live in an age where we have a lot of college degrees on staff, and that means that we are often the best managers we can be. But what about the other employees? They are also highly educated and usually have a lot of tenure. But, is this not a bad thing? I don’t mean to say that every employee is an asshole, but if we are all the best we can be, then we aren’t going to do anything to make our employer happy.
On the flip side, if you are not tenured, then your job is to work and make sure you get fired by your boss. But, if you have tenure, you have to be there to work, and you must stick around to make sure your boss doesn’t fire you.
What this boils down to is that we need to have a balance between the idea of each employee being a valuable part of the company and each employee being a valuable part of our family. If you are not a part of the company, then you are just a cog in the wheel, not a part of the company.
In the workplace, we have a saying that “people are people, and family is family”. But, in the corporate world, family is just a code word for a group of people you work with, and a group of people you never get to talk to. So, in a world where you are never getting to meet the other families, and in a world where you are never getting to know the other families (or families), the idea that you are working for a company is basically impossible.
