The fruitless search for employee happiness

Imagine this:

It's October 2015, and England are up against reigning champions New Zealand in the final of the rugby World Cup at Twickenham. In the 79th minute, with both teams level on points, in front of a crowd of 82,000 Jonny Wilkinson steps up to take a penalty which, if converted, will almost certainly give England the victory and make amends for the team's hapless performance in 2011.

Wilkinson places the ball, takes a couple of steps backwards, clasps his hands in his trademark prayer-like gesture and focuses his gaze on the target.

Quietly, just before he begins his run-up, the HR Director of the England Team steps up to Wilkinson and asks:

"Are you happy, Jonny?"

What would Wilkinson's response be?

More than likely it would be one of puzzlement and confusion at the nature of the question. Quite probably Wilkinson would state that at that precise moment in time the question was utterly irrelevant. I imagine that he'd say words to the effect of, "Right now, all I'm bothered about it making sure that this ball gets between those posts. Whether or not I'm happy is of no interest to me. Once I've kicked the ball and scored the points, ask me again and I'll tell you how I feel. But right now I have a job to do."

The same scenario could have been repeated this year with Jenson Button on the starting grid of the Canadian Formula 1 Grand Prix in Montreal, or Stuart Broad as he prepared to attempt to claim a hat-trick against India in the second test against India at Trent Bridge.

In all these cases, the response of those in question would be to indicate that whether or not they were happy just didn't enter their mind as they prepared to undertake the task in hand, but that they simply had a job to do, and that any happiness would follow the completion of the challenge, not precede it.

So why do we seem to be obsessed with the concept of employee satisfaction and engagement? From the overwhelming range of tools and techniques available to measure and improve employee satisfaction, you could be excused for thinking that making the workforce happy was the sole purpose of HR's existence.

The pursuit of employee satisfaction seems to have become more important than ensuring that employees are fully equipped to do their jobs, and are effectively managed to enable their organisation to achieve its strategy.

Surely it's the case that happiness is a product of success, not a prerequisite for it?

New Survey Demolishes Established HR Thinking

Regular readers of HR case Studies will be aware of the editorial team’s scepticism at the number of surveys that are commissioned in the HR world. Normally such surveys are thinly disguised marketing tools to “prove” that the service offered by the sponsor is the answer to all the world’s problems, and that you’d be daft not to give them a call and beg them to help you. Generally the surveys tell us in quantitative terms (and attempt to blind us with statistics) something that even the dumbest of us would have taken for granted anyway.

But a recent survey undertaken by the Chartered Management Institute radically breaks with this tradition and reveals something that will leave readers slack-jawed and wide-eyed with amazement.

It seems (brace yourselves) that managers might be to blame for worsening workplace morale.

Recoil with shock all those of you that thought that good morale in the workplace was actually the responsibility of the outsourced catering staff (See Gary Hamel’s seminal work, “Syrup Sponge and Custard: Unlocking Employee Engagement with Tasty Desserts")

Faint with horror anyone who still clings onto the well-researched theory that there is a demonstrable link between the United Kingdom’s performance in the Eurovision Song Contest and workplace productivity (See Ulrich and Brockbank’s influential Harvard Business Review article “Boom Bang-A-Bang: Competitive Advantage Through Employee Polyphony" (Foreword by Sir Terry Wogan)

Stagger under the impact of the paradigm shift that explodes the view that it’s really the responsibility of the employees themselves to keep morale high (see Paul McKenna’s bestseller, “I Can Make You Rather Jolly”)

The ground-breaking conclusion came as a result of the CMI's "Spring economic outlook survey" which found that 70% of managers admitted that morale in their organisations has dropped over the last six months. Throwing all the well-attested theory aside, the Chartered Management Institute has responded to the findings by suggesting that managers themselves could be responsible for the decline in morale.

Incredible, isn’t it? Just not at all what you'd expect.

The secret of happiness

Time for a little test!

Here's a simple question: what makes people in Britain happy?

Your task is to rank the following items in order of importance as voted for by those adults asked to identify what makes them happy.

• Helping others in the UK
• Living in a world where the environment is protected and where poverty does not exist
• Having a job with a high income
• Helping those abroad
• Having an interesting job
• Spending time with friends and family 

The poll was conducted to coincide with the launch today of Wholly Living, a report by Catholic aid agency CAFOD, Christian relief and development agency Tearfund and the public theology think-tank Theos. Examining human wellbeing in the context of both the UK and international development, the report invites the UK government, as well as people of all faiths and none, to enter the debate on how best to create an environment in which to engender human flourishing.

Tearfund Chief Executive Matthew Frost said:

It's interesting that in this time of economic uncertainty, when we might have expected people to prioritise income over all else, we have instead found that people look outwards to the state of the environment, world poverty and personal relationships with others as their measures of happiness

So HR Professionals who believe that you need to finely craft your reward and recognition frameworks in order to effectively motivate your employees, you might be interested to see the scores on the doors.

The keys to happiness according to those polled are:

• Spending time with friends and family (97%)
• Having an interesting job (92%)
• Living in a world where the environment is protected and where poverty does not exist (90%)
• Helping others in the UK (75%)
• Having a job with a high income (64%)
• Helping those abroad (54%)  

And other sections of the report give HR professionals some pointers about what matters to people within their working environments:

It's hugely important to people to enjoy interesting and productive work, and to have healthy relationships and friendships – people measure happiness by what they give to others and what they gain in return. Of course a level of financial security is essential, but it’s clear that British people recognise that the people in our lives come first.

Employee Communication: What's The Big Idea?

What communication strategy should you use? What elements should you include but also leave out of your chosen communication?

Surprisingly an article in the not-so-snappily-named Academy of Management Executive Journal, written in the dim and distant past of 2000 offers some fascinating insights into this issue.

So, as you probably won't have time to read the article (A strategy for communicating about uncertainty by Clampitt, DeKoch and Cashman) for yourself, here's their rather memorable and amusing summary of the five typical communication strategies favoured by most organisations:

Spray and Pray
What's the Big Idea? It's based on the idea that management should shower employees with all kinds of information.
What do I do? Throw as much information at employees as possible and hope they will be able to sort out the significant from the insignificant.
Advantages: It's simple.
Disadvantages: Information is not the same as communication, so you'll confuse the pants off some employees who may be overwhelmed by the amount of detail they receive.

Tell and Sell
What's the Big Idea? It's based on the belief that it's important to communicate a set of messages that address core organisational issues.
What do I do? First: tell employees about key issues; Second: sell to the employees the wisdom of your chosen path.
Advantages: At least you're communicating.
Disadvantages: It assumes that you know all the key organisational issues, so employees become sceptical and cynical of yet another program of the month decided by management.

Underscore and Explore
What's the Big Idea? This approach focuses on several fundamental issues most clearly linked to organisational success, while allowing employees the creative freedom to explore the implications of those ideas in a disciplined way.
What do I do? First: Talk. Second: Listen.
Advantages: You'll gain the engagement of those employees with whom you're communicating, by allowing them the opportunity to give feedback.
Disadvantages: You give control to your employees. Whoo! Scary!

Identify and Reply
What's the Big Idea? This one is seriously different to the first three in that it focuses on employee concerns.
What do I do? Allow the employees to identify those issues that concern them and then reply to those issues.
Advantages: It stresses the importance of listening to employees.
Disadvantages: It's essentially defensive, and assumes that employees are in the best position to know the critical issues when, in fact, they may not know enough to even ask the right questions.

Withhold and Uphold
What's the Big Idea? This devious approach is favoured by those for whom secrecy and control are the preferred strategy.
What do I do? Say nothing until absolutely necessary. Then uphold the party line.
Advantages: It allows you to concentrate on the day job rather than talk to the peasants.
Disadvantages: The rumour mill goes into overdrive; informal speculation workshops take place at the coffee machine; productivity nosedives.

Whichever approach you adopt, make sure that the description of a US Manufacturing organisation quoted by Clampitt, DeKoch and Cashman doesn't apply to you:

The prevailing opinion was that management was either evil for withholding information, stupid because it didn't know what was happening, or helpless since it never reacted until the last minute. We dubbed this phenomenon the terrible triad.

Now, over to you. Any comments?

I won't be in work today because my mother-in-law didn't die at the weekend as expected

Apparently today is National Sickie Day; the day of the year when most employees are likely to ring in and lie through their teeth about why they won't be in work.

Seems that 350,000 employees are expected to ring in and make their excuses today, and the likely cost to the economy could be in the region of £30 million.

According to the DailyTelegraph, part of the fault lies at the door of the weak and feeble managers who are too easily conned by employees who send in their pathetic excuses ("the road outside my house is too busy to cross") by e-mail and text. Seems in the good old days the super-sleuths of the UK could easily sort the malingers from the genuine moribund by talking to them on the phone.

Daily Telegraph: National Sickie Day: peak number of staff call in 'ill'

• Today's challenge: what the worst excuse for absence you've heard (or given!)

What happens when your employees are not engaged: They lick your chicken.

An unlicked chicken

Here’s a challenge for those of you involved in Employee Engagement: could you have succeeded with this guy who used to work in my local Asda store?

Film of supermarket worker Adeel Ayub who worked in the Asda store in Fulwood, Preston was posted on YouTube by one of his “friends” and accomplices.

The oh-so-hilarious prankster is shown letting off fire extinguishers, throwing eggs in a store room, ripping seats in the employee rest area, cutting his colleagues’ clothes, playing football in the aisles of the store, and urinating in a rubbish bin. His ever-so-funny encore for the appreciative audience is licking a raw chicken before putting it back on the shelf.

This week, he is starting a two-month jail term after he was sentenced at Preston Magistrates Court. For some unfathomable reason he was shocked at the sentence, and his solicitor does not believe that “the sentence is proportionate to the crime”

Lancashire Evening Post: Asda saboteur who denied licking raw chicken is jailed. (Warning! Contains link to video footage which some might find offensive)

• What might Asda wish to do to minimise the negative impact of this former employee's actions on current staff?

Don’t trust the boss? Don’t worry, the boss doesn’t trust you either!

Pic: a rather scrumptious looking porkie

According to recent research (mid week groan), two-thirds of managers believe that they can tell when their staff are lying, and 90% don’t believe reasons given for being late for work. But it also seems that these managers are usually kidding themselves.

Those managers who regard themselves as super-sleuths give lack of eye contact, avoiding people and body language as the signals they look for when trying to spot someone telling porkies. But these crude and unreliable indicators should actually brand just about every shy person as a liar.

Those in the know about such things (who presumably run courses in How To Lie Effectively) say that the best way of spotting lies involves careful questioning, looking for irregularities and then following up. Master practitioners (the Black Belts of Baloney Bashing) know how to spot micro-expressions such as a slight twitch, a swallow, an eye flutter.

But perhaps the most alarming statistic in all this is that the average manager only believes 10% of the reasons that are given for late arrival at work and other such lame excuses for under-performance.

There’s been a lot of debate recently about lack of trust of managers; it seems that they are getting their revenge by not trusting the lying little blighters that work for them.

Touché!

• Is mutual distrust between boss and subordinate an inevitable part of the working relationship?

France Télécom halts restructure amid suicides

HR Case Studies readers will be familiar with the shocking series of suicides at France Télécom which have taken place while the Company has been implementing a modernisation drive.

Since February 2008, there have been 25 suicides and a further series of attempted suicides.

Calls have been made for the resignation of Didier Lombard, France Télécom's chief executive. The French Government summoned Mr Lombard to a crisis meeting last month and demanded that he produced an urgent action plan.

With some similarities to the current situation in Royal Mail, there is a drive to dispense with many of the Company’s outmoded working practices and make the organisation more competitive in the international market. The vast majority of France Télécom’s workforce were recruited when the Company was a state monopoly, and when a job for life was practically guaranteed.

Although Mr Lombard had already eased up on a programme of compulsory job changes for managers, today’s announcement is of a complete halt to the restructuring until next year at the earliest.

How the company will use the 100 additional advisers in human resources that it recently recruited to address the issue of workplace stress is not yet clear

Times Online: France Télécom halts restructure amid suicides

• What lessons are to be learned from the problems that France Télécom has encountered?
• Are there particular sensitivities that need to be dealt with when undertaking restructures in former state monopolies?
• What, if any, are the similarities between the situation in France Télécom and that in Royal Mail?
• There was some heated debate a few days ago in response to an article in The Times entitled HR Departments: What's the point of them? Is there anything that the 100 additional advisers in human resources would be able to achieve in France Télécom to answer those critics who believe that HR is a waste of space?

What sort of Corporate Prisoner are you?

A recent report by talent consultancy Chiumento has concluded that the recession is forcing a lot of people to stay put in their jobs, even if they don't like them. Rather dramatically, the report tags these people as “Corporate Prisoners.”

A Corporate Prisoner is someone who stays with an organisation without being fully engaged. Their personal aspirations and needs are no longer aligned with those of their employer. Rather than move on to a new role or new organisation, the Corporate Prisoner stays. Some out of choice – some for reasons beyond their control.

Can you spot yourself here?

Escapers
Have little or no desire to stay but can’t afford to leave until there’s another job to go to. Already plotting how to escape and just waiting for the opportunity.

Economic prisoners
Want to move on but can’t afford the price of doing so. Stand to lose far too much in monetary terms to even think about leaving

Lifers
Going nowhere – at least not any time soon. The antithesis of Escapers, they have little or no career ambition and have settled down in a role that is well within their capability while meeting their basic economic needs.

Prisoners of Conscience
Really believe in what the organisation does. It is why they joined and why they stay. Often drawn to not-for profit organisation and public sector. The problem is that their belief in the organisation can outweigh their capability

Prisoners of circumstance
Individuals with the desire to both stay and perform – but ability to do so is compromised by external factors. May have been unable to access training or development – or are constrained to working particular patterns in specific locations.

Visiting stars
Individuals who join to meet an immediate need – often economic – but with no intention of staying longer than necessary. Some may be workers looking for a safe haven to shelter from the economic storm.

Chiumento Green Paper: 'Productivity sapped by dispirited employees'

• What are the implications of this report for an organisation’s career management strategy
• Is it reasonable for organisations to categorise employees using such terminology (either formally or informally)?
• How could such information be of use to organisations selecting individuals for redundancy or redeployment?
• Has this report identified a new phenomenon, or have there always been such individuals in organisations?
• What sort of “prisoner” would organisations prefer: one who has no desire to leave, but doesn’t have the ability to perform, or one who wishes to leave but is an excellent performer?

Calls for France Télécom boss to resign as suicides reach 24

Regular readers of HR Case Studies will already be aware of the tragic cost of company restructuring at France Telecom, where there has been a rising number of suicides over recent months. The blame for these alarming statistics has been placed at the door of France Telecom’s 'modernisation' programme, which has seen 22,000 jobs lost and 10,000 people change jobs (often from a technical to a customer service or sales role).

In a further development today, Didier Lombard, the chief executive of France Télécom, faced calls for his resignation after another member of staff committed suicide yesterday, bringing the tally to 24 deaths in 18 months.

The latest in a list of deaths, which has shocked France and sparked debate over restructuring at the telecommunications giant, occurred on Monday when a 51-year-old employee killed himself in the French Alps. The man left a note blaming the ''atmosphere'' at work before throwing himself off a motorway bridge in Alby-sur-Chéran.

Like many of the suicide victims at the former state monopoly, he had recently switched jobs — in his case moving to a call centre where he had been given demanding performance objectives.

Visiting the site in Alby-sur-Chéran, Mr Lombard was booed by employees as he announced an end to the programme of compulsory job changes for managers. He also suspended staff performance indicators at the call centre, but failed to quell a storm of protest over the spate of suicides. The main Trade Union within France Telecom believe that the resignation of Mr Lombard is the only solution, but it seems that resignation is not on Mr Lombard’s agenda. The French government are already involved in the case, and ministers have urged a more ''humane'' approach to job changes at France Telecom, prompting Mr Lombard to hire 100 additional advisers in human resources and launch negotiations with unions on workplace stress.

France Télécom boss lambasted as suicides reach 24

• Review the questions in the previous article on France Telecom, and consider if your answers have changed in the light of this further development

Six million UK workers are unfulfilled in their jobs

According to a new survey by workplace assessment and development specialists SHL, apparently 22% of us find work unfulfilling. More than one in five UK workers consider themselves to be rarely or never fulfilled in their jobs. This dissatisfaction (which is felt most strongly in the younger working population) has got even worse as a result of the recession. SHL warn that although the current job market may mean that few workers are actively looking to change jobs, if the economy picks up again this could lead to a mass exodus of dissatisfied employees.

Some frightening statistics:

• 22% of us rarely or never feel fulfilled at work. That’s around six million employees
• 23% of the 16-35 age group say they do not feel they are in the right job for them
• 32% of workers questioned say they have re-evaluated the type of organisation for which they work as a result of the recession
• Workers in retail, leisure and catering industries were found to have the least job satisfaction, with 31% saying they rarely or never feel fulfilled in their job.
  

Almost six million UK workers failing to find job fulfilment

• What are the problems that companies will face if a large percentage of their employees feel unfulfilled in their jobs?
• What can companies to do remedy this situation?
• A quarter of those between 16 and 35 say they rarely or never feel fulfilled at work. Why might this be?
• What could be the factors that have led to workers in healthcare and education claiming the highest job satisfaction levels, but those in retail, leisure and catering claiming the lowest?
• Further research activity: Explore the different tools that SHL market and consider how these might be used to address this problem.

Sven gets red card for fouling up on induction

Sven-Goran Eriksson this week revealed that in addition to not doing a particularly good job with the England football team, his HR skills are severely lacking! After recruiting ex-England defender Sol Campbell on a five-year deal last month, the ex-England manager expressed his “disappointment” when Campbell left Notts County this week after just one match.

Come on Sven! If you’d been reading HR Case Studies over the last few weeks, you’d know that the danger period for new recruits leaving a new job is the first few weeks. Your comment of “I really don't know the real reason” clearly indicates that you need to implement a decent exit interview process at Notts County. And as for, “He didn't like the training pitch and the dressing room and things like that but he knew that before because we showed him around before he signed” – what sort of induction programme is that! If a commercial organisation had just recruited a new employee on a reported £40,000 per week, you could guarantee that the onboarding process would be a bit more sophisticated than a swift trip round the office block! You need some HR support Sven. Give me a call.

Eriksson "let down" by Campbell

• Just because a new employee happens to be a highly-paid footballer, should they receive a different induction programme to others at a more junior level joining the club?

The tragic cost of company restructuring at France Telecom

The female employee of France Telecom’s Orange subsidiary who threw herself out of a fourth floor window last week was the company’s 23rd suicide in the last 18 months. She had just attended a meeting to discuss a reorganisation of the customer service department she worked in. As Management Today has reported, it’s hardly surprising that the French government, which still owns a quarter of the company, has stepped in to reassure staff that the problem is being addressed. The company’s Trade Unions put the blame for these alarming statistics firmly at the door of France Telecom’s 'modernisation' programme, which has seen 22,000 jobs lost and 10,000 people change jobs (often from a technical to a customer service or sales role). Other employees have taken dramatic action when being told that their jobs are changing; last week a technician stabbed himself in the stomach in protest at being moved into a new role.

A spokesman for France Telecom pointed out that France as a whole has a high suicide rate, of 17.8 per 100,000 people. But since that's about the number of people France Telecom employs, its suicide rate is clearly well above average, and definitely high enough to cause serious concern. The company has promised to bring a temporary halt to its restructuring programme while it introduces measures to deal with workplace stress. The good news for French HR professionals is that France Telecom is recruiting a number of them.

France Telecom forced to account for human cost of restructuring

• What action would you expect the HR team in France Telecom to be taking following these events?
• How might France Telecom have anticipated its employees reacting in such a dramatic fashion?
• What are your views on the restructuring which has led to so many employees being required to change jobs?
• What actions do many organisations take to minimise workplace stress?
• As this latest even was the 23rd suicide in 18 months, should the company have taken action earlier and, if so, what?