Article: Are You ‘Paying’ Attention to Your Employees’ Happiness Quotient?
Author: Asif Upadhyae,
Director,
Never Grow Up
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Asif Upadhyae, Director, Never Grow Up |
Let’s be candid here for a
moment. When
people having recently quit their jobs attempt to explain their reasons for
leaving – “God,
the hours were terrible”,
“the work
culture just wasn’t
my cup of tea” or
“I didn’t really see a future with
the company” – isn’t there a voice in the back
of most people’s
head listening and thinking “I
bet it was actually the bad pay”?
This is without a doubt one
of the industry’s,
nay, mankind’s
most commonly made assumptions (an
employee must be unhappy because they feel that they aren’t getting paid enough) and unfortunately one of
the greatest hindrances towards getting to the root of a company’s attrition problem. When money is viewed as the
source and the
end-all of an
employee’s
sense of dissatisfaction with their company, it makes introspection or delving
deeper into a company’s
core elements, seem like an unnecessary course of action.
But let us put some
statistics on the table. A
2010 meta-analysis
study revealed that the association between an employee’s salary and job
satisfaction was, in fact, very weak; the overlap between the measured pay and
job satisfaction levels was as low as 2%! Another US-based research revealed
that nearly 40% of
the respondents were willing to give up as much as $5000 (Rs. 3.2 lakhs) a year in salary to be happier
at work.
So, I suppose the point I’m trying to drive home here
is that perhaps it is time for professionals, employers and organizations
everywhere to dethrone ‘money’ from its position of
Supreme Prime Motivator and shift their focus to something less tangible, more
personal and far more intrinsically essential to their workforce – happiness.
Happiness, of course, is
variable, elusive and most certainly more difficult to understand than a bank statement. But all it takes is an initiative,
a perceptive mind and a sensitive ear to know what exactly makes people tick – you see, people actually
want their problems to be heard, provided they feel like someone’s listening. To anyone paying the
slightest attention, the problems that employees communicate are the gateway to
realising and resolving all the issues that the company needs to work upon.
So, let’s revisit the complaints we
had heard earlier that would otherwise be brushed off under the “it’s the bad pay” assumption. This time, however, let’s lend a perceptive ear to them
and try to truly understand what that means for the employee and the company.
When an employee says “God, the hours were
terrible”,
they most likely mean that their organization clearly did place priority on the work-life balance of their employees and the
employee did not feel like their time was being valued.
“The work culture just wasn’t my cup of tea” possibly means that their
company was clearly lacking a comfortable, friendly or supportive element in
their work environment or that the work culture
was not conducive for the employee to be able to create any positive
interpersonal relationships at work resulting in stress or a feeling of
isolation.
In the same vein, an
employee who “didn’t really see a future with
the company” probably
came to the realisation that their personal goals were clearly not aligned with those of the company’s and that they did not
feel inclined to take ownership of the
work handed to them.
Hence, when we move past the elementary judgments and make an attempt to truly,
unconditionally listen to the concerns of our employees, we end up with ample data
to be able to determine what makes our workforce happy. (Hint: it’s definitely not just the
money). Since ‘bad pays’ do not lie at the root of employee
dissatisfaction, regular happiness-oriented
feedback tools are truly the need of the hour to uncover and analyse all the elements that
determine employee happiness. It’s time to move over the
general money-oriented
assumptions, and move towards true workplace happiness. As the old saying goes, “money can’t buy happiness!”
There are things that your
employees might not feel comfortable talking about – while it does speak about a
shortcoming in your work culture that you must overcome – it needs to be dealt most
efficiently with the aid of regular, anonymous surveys, questionnaires or
feedback forms.
No matter how genial an employer you might be, there will always be factors that your employees just do not feel comfortable sharing with you as a direct, negative feedback.
No matter how genial an employer you might be, there will always be factors that your employees just do not feel comfortable sharing with you as a direct, negative feedback.
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