Many
believe that worker happiness can lead to employee satisfaction, to better
employee engagement and then on to increased productivity. It’s easy to feel this way and kind of hard
to refute that a happy employee is a more engaged employee.
However
New York’s Conference Board, a century-old research
firm, began studying employee satisfaction and engagement 25 years ago. Their
work shows that worker happiness has fallen every year since–in good economic
times and bad. Today, over half of American workers effectively hate their
jobs. So what’s going on?
In our opinion many companies have lost sight of
what matters most to people at work. Appreciation. Support. Recognition.
Respect. Every company thinks that they have these values and act
accordingly. If so why are so many
employees still disengaged?
To begin to understand this conundrum there are three things that
management needs to re-learn and never forget:
- What makes people happiest in their jobs are all profoundly personal. According to a Towers Watson study, the single highest driver of employee engagement is whether the employees feel their managers are genuinely interested in their well being. Today only 40% of workers feel that.
- People only thrive when they feel recognized and appreciated. To do that management must manage from their hearts. It’s the heart that connects us us human beings.
- Your employees will stay connected to your company if you tell them directly you need them, care about them, and sincerely plan to support them. Any time someone quits a job for a reason other than money, they’re leaving in hope that things will be better somewhere else.
It
was once said that “measuring happiness is about
as easy as taking the temperature of the soul or determining the exact color of
love.” Work, as well as everything else
in life is likely to make us feel wide range of emotions. It’s great to feel happiness, but you can’t
will it into existence.
For
more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers
please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
