AAA Ratings and the Free Market
How I see it as a young, small fish in an old, large pond…
I had the luxury the other day of escorting around a AAA representative while he rated my property and updated the hotel info. Upon his arrival he announced himself and asked to see a four or five different rooms. He was not staying over, it was just a walk in/walk out visit. A quick call to housekeeping to confirm the show rooms and I took him to the guest rooms. During my conversations with the inspector, he was telling me about the great lengths that other hotels go through to try and identify “secret shoppers” from AAA. Usually it consists of some type of incentive program fro pointing out the right person. He said his goal was to have an average experience, and being identified defeated the purpose of performing a secret shop. It was so nice to hear about how hard hotels work to influence the decision of a AAA Inspector because it supports the value of a free market void of government enforced standards. How many times do people consult AAA, or Blue Book values of a car, or user reviews online? These all heavily sway the decision of the buyer and impact the business and the types and quality of products they produce. Would you buy a car that was not built well and was reported to be the cause of many deaths? Of course not!…and a company that built a product like that would either go out of business or have to reevaluate the product they offer. Government regulations (AKA violence enforced regulations) hurt companies more than they protect business and consumers. Let the market decide which products are safe through reputable organizations the way people trust AAA ratings.
I believe the same holds true for employers. The idea of OSHA is a disgrace to me. If an employer is not providing a safe work place and someone gets hurt they will be sued and/or have their insurance rate go up. Why would a business put them in that position? And why would someone want to work in an unsafe work environment? A bad reputation will only limit your pool of candidates and when a company continuously cannot hire the right people they will reevaluate how they do business. Employees are just as responsible for doing their research in a company too. An agency that would not provide details of employee accident history may have something to hide, deterring potential employees from that agency. Let reputation speak for a company instead of having them be told how to run a company that they have already paid for permission to exist. AAA ratings and other private inspections can help create a safe work environment and a safe and quality product benefiting suppliers and buyers.
Do you think employers could handle providing a safe product for their customers and a safe product for their consumers if they weren’t being forced to by the threat of violence?