On Workplace Happiness

Does having more engaged employees make a difference to the bottom line? The short answer is yes. Best Buy found just that. Higher employee engagement scores did lead to better store performance. The company found that for every 10th of a point it boosted employee engagement, its store saw a $100,000 increase in operating income annually. (Harvard Business Review, September 2010).Why then is employee engagement dropping according to surveys across the world? As someone recently mentioned that employee engagement is like customer satisfaction. All companies will spout homilies like "Customer is King" or the worst of them all, "Employees are our greatest assets" and then go on to make them miserable in the most innovative ways. Read the seven most common reasons for employee attrition here.Contrast this  Mike Myatt's post in Forbes titled 10 Reasons Why Your Top Talent Will Leave You. If you are an employer that sounds like a ticking time bomb. Look at the statistics according to this article.

• More than 30% believe they’ll be working someplace else inside of 12 months.
• More than 40% don’t respect the person they report to.
• More than 50% say they have different values than their employer.
• More than 60% don’t feel their career goals are aligned with the plans their employers have for them.
• More than 70% don’t feel appreciated or valued by their employer.

This survey also tells us a few things that workplaces must provide not only to hang on to talented employees but also to be able to encourage people to give their best. The four things that people seem to care about:

1. People want to look up to their manager and respect them. The word respect comes from Latin respicere meaning to "look back at". People want a manager who they can treat with deferential regard because of their qualities - not just someone who is pulling rank. The role of the manager is very important. People who can walk the talk and be role models inspire their team to do well. People like to learn from their managers. So a manager who can develop the team members to deliver under tough conditions and continues coaches them to succeed earns the respect of the employee. Employees are engaged when they view the organization and their managers investing in their career.
2. People want to work for an organization whose values (in action) resonate with their own. This means hiring has to focus on finding cultural fit and not just focus on competencies. Hiring is the most neglected part of the hiring process. I have seen many organizations articulate their values after the leadership team spends a day at an offsite. The values need to carry the voice of every employee and must be put into action through the policies, rules and day to day behaviour of every employee at every level. Values represent the choices made by an organization when there is a dilemma and when no one is looking.
3. Align the career goals of the employees with what the organization has: I have been asking people managers over the years, what do you discuss when you are having a career-conversation with an employee? Most managers avoid these conversations thinking that it buttonholes them into agreeing on a date when the employee will be promoted. Career conversations involve creating a plan for the employee to develop and deepen their skills in the current role and to help the employee be better prepared for taking a larger role. The focus is on skill building.  Career aspirations evolve. So make sure that you speak often enough to the employee and help build clarity.
4. Appreciate the strengths that the person used while doing the task: It is human to want to be appreciated. Too much of the corporate culture is focused on discovering what people do not do right. This again is an outcome of poor hiring. When there is no fit between the employee and his role, the person may not be playing to his strengths. It is important to remember that all the skill gaps are not equally trainable. So if there is something that is a deal-breaker in a role, make sure you evaluate for it while hiring than to hope for all the gaps to be hired through a 3 day training program.

All these reasons bust the myth that people quit for money. Money does have a minimum threshold level. Once people are paid that minimum amount, then that ceases to motivate. People are looking for meaning in the workplace. A good fit with the culture of the workplace also means that it is easy for people to build strong social relations in the workplace. A study on 222 undergraduates is quoted in the Psychol Science. 2002. The study compares the upper 10% of consistently very happy people with average and very unhappy people.

The very happy people were highly social, and had stronger romantic and other social relationships than less happy groups. They were more extraverted, more agreeable, and less neurotic.

We have to go beyond employee satisfaction and even employee engagement before we can focus on workplace happiness. The workplace has to be a happy place. That's not too much to ask for.--------------------Going Beyond the Resume - how does one hire better. Read this <click here>There is no such thing as the best company to work for - here's why <click here>This post first appeared in The Times of India blog <click here>