Inflation Busters -- Part 1

In this episode, Dr. Sukup will discuss ways that employers can provide relief to themselves and their employees.  This is the first of a series talking of ways to combat inflation.

Transcript

Speaker A: 0:00

Welcome to the Business Administration podcast. Hello, everyone. I'm Dr. Leslie Soccer, and it's wonderful to be back with season two of the Business Administration podcast. In this episode, I want to talk about some innovative ways that we as employers and employees can combat inflation. And this is going to be a series, so stay tuned because this is just the beginning of innovative ways to combat inflation. So the first innovative way that we will focus on for this episode is thinking innovatively within your organization to not just benefit your employees, but also the community. And this idea came about from listening to a channel on YouTube, and I thought, wow, this is really amazing, and I need to share this idea. So the idea was, or I should say is that this organization from the state of Alabama in the United States happens to be a car wash. Took one of their Bays, their car wash bays. It's a traditional car wash that you see in many places throughout the world. So it's a car wash with bays, and then they have the sprayers where you can manually wash your cars. Well, one of these bays was transformed into a plant exchange, as well as an excess produce table where you can take fruits and vegetables from your garden and that you have an abundance of and share them. And when I heard this, I was like, wow, this is pretty amazing. And if every organization does something small like this, it can have quite a significant domino effect, not just on themselves with their employees, but also the community. And I do see us weathering the storm through acts of kindness like this. I think it's significant, it's heartwarming, and it really brings out the goodness in humans. So when I hear stories like this, I'm like, wow, I need to share this. We need to be shouting this from the rooftops and doing more of these types of things. So kudos to the owner of that car wash for coming up with this. It was spectacular. Now I realized that not everyone lives in an area where you can have a garden. Not everyone lives in an area where you can have outside containers growing fruits and vegetables. So instead of having like a regular house plant for this plant exchange, you can exchange a plant for a plant that can produce you. Maybe you love tomatoes. You grab a tomato plant and you leave a monster. It's very simple. You're taking a plant and you're leaving at the plant exchange when your tomatoes come to harvest. If you have excess tomatoes, share them. I think that these little acts of kindness are going to be truly significant in the grand scheme of things. We're all facing increased prices when we go to the grocery store. And I think that little acts of kindness can be quite significant, not only in our local community, but throughout the world. I think it has a significant domino effect. Now, for organizations that do these good deeds that help not just their employees, but the local community, you're in a win win situation because you are providing this opportunity to take some of that pain and ease some of that suffering with your employees in the local community. But you're also, by helping your employees, that's making them feel more positive. They may feel grateful to your organization. And anytime that you bring in these positive emotions, these positive attributes, the research shows that that employee is more likely to remain with your organization. They're going to have increased job satisfaction, and they're going to become a better overall employee. So they're going to be more productive. They are going to have better interactions with their colleagues who they're working with, as well as the customers or the clients. So there's really not too much of a downside here other than taking some space away from what it was originally intended to be used for. So I think if we, if we start to see more of this in organizations, I think it can be truly significant in a positive way. Well, stay tuned for more tips on combating inflation. Until then, be safe and be well.