Years ago, I worked for the largest food service corporation in the world. I was a mid level manager in the most profitable upscale division in the company. Corporate policies were costing us money, efficiency and, good employees. Over the course of several years, I wrote up multiple recommendations to address the problems being caused by the policies detailing specific issues and giving my solutions. I presented them to my manager who acted impressed with the work I had done and promised to give it his full attention.
Six months later, no change and my manager had left. I passed my recommendations onto his manager and was told "these are our corporate policies...love it or leave it." At a corporate training seminar, I ran into the devision vice president and discussed the policies with him. His reply was that the policies were decided at the highest level and couldn't be adapted/changed because of the business conditions at one location. Say what? The cornerstone of any successful food service operation is flexibility and timely response to changing demands and trends.
The division vice president did however inspire me with his lack of understanding of food service so, I reworked my recommendations plugging in actual data from our operation showing annual costs and giving savings if the policies were adapted/modified for our location and sent it to the vice president of operations for the entire company.
Now, a year passed since I made my original report, there are new policies which further hinder efficiency and operations. I received word from my divisional vice president that the report had been kicked back to him and that "policies would not be changed to fit one location regardless of benefit."
I made the decision to leave corporate America soon after.
