It’s odd to think back that only a few years ago, employees were generally happier and more productive than they are now. Surveys of employee well-being and engagement were going up. What happened? Well, the pandemic either woke us up or knocked us off balance. It all depends on how you look at employee discontent: are workers full of ingratitude or enlightenment? Or maybe a bit of both?
According to Time magazine, the Great Pause knocked us all off balance. Employees were furloughed. People were sent home to work remotely. Many discovered they liked working at home in loungewear or not working at all. Many refused to return to jobs after all the Zoom calls and Netflix
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Why? Research shows that worker contentment and purposefulness measures have dropped, especially in Europe and South Asia. Generally, it sounds like a gloomy weather report: well-being trends are stable but low. Employee stress is at an all-time high. European workers’ hope is declining. Sunny skies are nowhere in the forecast. But wait, the same report says the U.S. is (for the moment) the best place on the globe to be employed, partly because workers generally see more security and feel a greater sense of well-being here.
That sounds promising. Yet it’s a passing grade based on a curve: we’re doing well only compared to the rest of the world. In fact, according to CNBC, “In the U.S. specifically, 50% of workers reported feeling stressed at their jobs on a daily basis, 41% are worried, 22% are sad, and 18% angry.”
A half-full glass is also half-empty. A fifth of all American workers report feeling “miserable,” and worker engagement measures remain low compared to 2020. The cynical CEO might consider this par for the course. Someone in every organization will be disgruntled. One out of five employees would paraphrase the poet Charles Bukowski that work is being asked to be grateful for the chance to be awakened at 6:30 AM to arrive at a place where essentially you make lots of money for someone else.
In its report, CNBC nails it: this is not a collapse of the work ethic. It’s a failure of management. Workers are unhappy because they don’t believe their work is recognized and appropriately rewarded. Leadership is failing to do what’s needed in critical ways, which according to that CNBC report, are: “the lack of a culture that emphasizes respect, community and contribution acknowledgment.” Workers cite the demoralizing effect of unfair treatment, inconsistent compensation, bias, favoritism, unclear communication from managers, and excessive time pressures. Additionally, Gallup found that the team leader alone accounts for “70% of the variance in team engagement.”
This leadership crisis has deep roots. Historically low labor participation rates date back much further than the pandemic. Nicholas Eberstadt published a book about Men Without Work in 2016. His thesis: our safety net for the unemployed was helping to nudge workers to seek a threadbare dependency on public assistance rather than brave workplace insults. The New York Review of Books commented on that thesis, contending that men—mainly white and black—avoided work because the jobs were low-paid and stultifying.
If jobs were challenging and rewarding and the compensation was better, people would be competing for them, not avoiding work altogether.
Stakeholder capitalism is a blueprint for creating that kind of job. What’s missing here is what stakeholder capitalism has provided to leaders who have successfully embraced it: a structure that recognizes the pivotal value of all employees in creating a company’s future. Stakeholder capitalism establishes fair compensation, a system that rewards creativity and achievement, and a sense of mission that shows employees how what they do improves the lives of customers, communities and their environment. And that motivates them, fires them up, to build a better future for their company.
Time magazine supports all of this in its recent report on creating good jobs. The Aspen Institute and the Family Workers Fund are working together to deconstruct the nature of a good job. What are the building blocks of a job that energizes and inspires workers to creative engagement? According to these organizations, it offers economic stability, mobility, and a sense of agency and respect on the job. That means: 1) Workers with good jobs earn enough to pay the bills and not live in fear of being evicted or going hungry. 2) They are confident that hard work and learning on the job will lead to a promotion or higher wages, or a better job elsewhere. 3) They feel respected and recognized and know their efforts and ideas are valued and impact their organization.
With all of these requirements fulfilled, with employees who are happy in their work, an organization has at least the chance to create a reward and recognition structure to draw creative ideas and behavior from their workers at all levels. That creativity, if organizationally focused on customer delight, will transform a company into an engine of profit that’s just and fair to all stakeholders.
How do you know if you are doing this? Here are some of the questions that your employees should be able to answer in the affirmative:
Are you being paid enough?
Are you able to care for your children and your health?
Is your boss fair, and does your boss respect you?
Are you given opportunities for advancement?
Do superiors and co-workers listen to and consider your ideas?
Is your work interesting and challenging?
If your employees answer no to several of these questions, your jobs aren’t good enough. Here’s how one mid-sized company essentially got affirmative answers to all those questions.
In 2013, Quest Diagnostics was ahead of the curve. It did something many companies are doing post-pandemic: it dramatically reduced its physical presence and allowed many workers to do their jobs remotely. Before 2013, it had twenty call centers with 850 employees and more than 50 supervisors. It reduced those facilities to two locations and allowed 250 call workers to do their jobs remotely. This saved money and seemed to make sense. But it destroyed morale. Two-thirds of reps left in their first year on the job. The frustrated ones who stayed passed on their unhappiness to customers. Performance plummeted.
The company decided to reward and empower its front-line workers in two phases: stabilize and then improve. It focused on and simplified compensation to stop the bleeding: higher wages and clear organizational stepladders to better pay and better jobs. People understood what they needed to do to improve their future with the company. In the second and crucial phase, the firm empowered even the lowest workers to find ways to suggest improvements for operations to please customers and lower costs. It gave them the power to improve the company on their own.
These simple, yet fundamental changes—in line with stakeholder capitalist principles—improved morale and performance. Innovations included automating some call center functions for customers who didn’t require human contact for full service. Additionally, call center employees used their new autonomy to solve customer problems without supervisors needing a green light. Outcome: lower call volumes requiring human intervention and more customer satisfaction. Employee promotions increased threefold, and skills and average wages increased in measurable ways.
The Good Jobs Institutes offers clear tips on finding the same path toward continuous improvement at your own company. For example, standardize routine processes based on content, sequence, and outcomes. Ensure all employees have all the information they need to do their jobs: information about company strategies, products, promotions, policies and career paths. Create ways for different departments or employees to share best practices and collaborate on problem-solving. The litmus test: every year, have your supervisors cite three favorite ideas that frontline workers have submitted that improved operations in measurable ways.
When people know they are appreciated and respected and have ways to make more than they need simply to survive, jobs become rewarding and meaningful. Some months ago, in a collaborative project, The Good Jobs Institute, Just Capital, Financial Health Network and U.S. Labor Department launched a multi-year program to help the private sector create good jobs: The Just Jobs Initiative.
Any company wanting to get more involved in that project and start toward good jobs should check out this initiative. Tolu Laurence, JUST
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