FedEx Freight
Business organizations come in all shapes and sizes and often exhibit more differences
than similarities. But one factor common to all is that success is highly dependent on the skills,
knowledge and experience of the employees within them (Eseme, 2011). FedEx Freight sought
to put their employees first by having a deep understanding of the conditions needed for their
employees to be successful. FedEx used a system called InTouch to gather how their employees
felt about issues that they felt needed to be fixed or dealt with. InTouch gave FedEx the
opportunity to effective manage and deal with employee problems head on while providing
anonymity so that employees didn't feel singled out by the leadership of the corporation (Hess &
Cameron, 2006). One scripture that sticks out in particular is Proverbs 27:23 states, know well
the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds. FedEx Vice President of
operations, Gary Bouch used the InTouch communications to gain a better understanding of the
overall condition of the employees and their direct management. Having this understanding
helped Mr. Bouch put together a plan of action to help the organization better gauge and take
care of employee problems while helping to understand problems before they occur.
FedEx as a whole was a prosperous organization economically and although Gary Bouch
could have ignored the needs of the employees he took it upon himself to lookout for them and
put their needs first. In order to gain a better read of the leadership Bouch decided to take his
team out to a ranch and complete a ropes course in order to work on overall development. In
order for FedEx to continue to remain prosperous and retain its most valuable employees Bouch
knew something had to be done about the leadership and decided the best way to do so was to
take a chance and place his credibility on the line. In this instance Bouch looked not after his
own best interests, but rather at the best overall situations for his employees. By Bouch having
the gall to step out and attack the situation before it became more of a problem he was able to
influence the leaders of the company to work as a team.
Leaders can help develop a culture of putting people first by having the ability to listen
and know what people need. In order for leaders to be successful they should be “readers of
people” (Maxwell, 2007). The author goes on to state that this helps leaders to sense what is
going on amongst their employees and know their hopes, and fears. Reading people is perhaps
the most important skill a leader can process in the grand scheme of things. This is especially
true based off what knowledge Bouch was able to gain based on using the InTouch hotline. If
Bouch had not given employees the platform to voice their displeasures and give their feedback
the culture of FedEx would have suffered dramatically.
Reference
Hess, E., & Cameron, K. (2006). Leading with values: Positivity, virtue, and high performance.
New York, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Maxwell, J. (2007). The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership: Follow them and people will follow
you (Rev. and updated 10th anniversary ed.). Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson.
Eseme, D. (2011). Putting people first: Employee retention and organizational
performance. Development and Learning in Organizations, 25(1), 25-27.
