Your company employs a team of highly skilled carpenters, for whom you provide the tools. But you don't quite give enough hacksaws for everybody to have one, so they have to wait around until one is available. And sometimes - well, quite often actually - the drills don't have the proper drill bits. There are two planers, and they are frequently missing. When the carpenters come to have a tea break, there's only an unclean room without enough places for them to sit and relax, nor enough clean mugs. The customers complain to the workers, but all the carpenters can do is apologise.
This would be a ridiculous hypothetical scenario. And yet....
I have worked in environments where at any time about 1 in 3 of the computers didn't work properly. Some of them didn't have the correct software installed to do work. Useful equipment was often missing. Telephones were out of order and not replaced. The hot water boiler in the common room didn't work. Chairs were broken, sofas worn, and the walls dirty. Repeated requests for new chairs were ignored.
How much contempt must an employer have for their staff when they don't even take the effort to give them equipment that works? Needless to say, employee morale was very low.
Employees felt the lack of respect and felt unvalued. If an organisation won't even enable their employees to work effectively, then they can hardly expect efficiency, let alone loyalty. A monopolistic organisation can afford to treat its employees with disrespect, but even then it diminishes everybody.
Give your employees tools. Make sure the tools work. If you won't support them in their work, they will never support you in return.
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