Employee Turnaround Day

Years ago when I was a student at the Atlanta Job Corps Center I was erroneously placed on a work-base learning assignment in the campus cafeteria though I was a Business Clerical major who'd definitively mastered the trade. After helping to chop hundreds of cabbages and helping in other capacities, I developed a great respect for those who routinely worked the job. I was eventually placed on the company switchboard at the AJCC for work-base learning, and my very first full-time job was as a receptionist/concierge at an Atlanta residential community where I worked for nearly a decade. I never forgot the mix-up, however. This experience inspired an idea that I contrived for an official employee turn-around day, a day on which employees would switch jobs within and/or between companies for the purpose of placing themselves in the shoes of and developing respect for and/or insight into others' work. For example, a company CEO could switch jobs with a production worker, that is if the CEO has never worked in production. An official employee turnaround day would give companies insight into how they can improve every element of their businesses. Of course not everyone's job is laborious or esoteric. There would be something to learn from each experience, however, if nothing more than the fact that every employee's contributed effort makes companies work, and advancement is practical for everyone.