June 10, 2008
Well, according to The Great Place to Work Institute (http://www.greatplacetowork.com/), which named Google as America’s ‘Best Company to Work For’, it’s because its employees think that….
“..this company has created a culture that is high on trust, low on politics, great at sharing resources and sharing the wealth, and is full of meaning and significance.”
As one Google employee put it “The don’t be evil” mantra is more than skin deep; it is the core of the culture”.
So, the culture runs a lot deeper than the perks that ‘Googlers’ receive, but they can’t hurt either – just take a look at the selection below:
And more recently they have added:
• Annual on-site Health Fair offering various free testing services, including eye exams and cholesterol testing; plus free flu shots.
• Fuel Efficiency Vehicle Incentive Program encourages employees to purchase hybrid cars by providing a $5,000 financial incentive.
• Their new maternity leave policy gives new mothers, who have been Google employees for at least 1 year, 6 additional weeks of paid leave (a total of 18 weeks) to bond with their baby. New fathers can take up to 7 weeks of paid time off during the baby’s first year.
Now, I know you’ll be thinking that this is an impossible vision. That Google is one of the world’s richest companies and doesn’t have to worry about making a profit each month. And you’re right, it does highlight a gulf between most UK workers’ experiences and those of the Googlers; but it also shows us what’s possible. What if your business leaders applied the philosophy of Google’s leaders in your organisation? It wouldn’t be the same, but how might work feel different for you and your fellow employees?
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Leadership, Well-being, reward and recognition | Tagged: Best Company To Work For, work culture, Perks & Benefits, business leaders | 
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Posted by Cary Cooper
March 31, 2008
Last week British Airways asked their staff to work through the night and past the end of their shifts in order to sort out the chaos caused by the various system failures that plagued the opening day of Heathrow’s new Terminal 5. In crisis situations like this one, and more serious examples like 9/11 in the States and 7/7 here, we often see staff really stepping up to the mark and giving freely of their energy to help their organisation and its customers out. In this case, BA staff had to take abuse from customers and morale was reported to be dropping like a stone at the end of last week. But even in this context, many of them volunteered to work at the weekend to clear the backlogs of passenger luggage – that’s dedication!
But when the dust settles and the problem is solved, how do you say ‘thank you’ to your workforce for going well beyond the call of duty? I wonder what BA will do this week for the army of ground staff and call centre workers who gradually dug them out of their nightmare opening day scenario?
Of course, one option is simply to pay them a bonus. However, I suspect that it’s actually more of blended approach that’s required to get to a point where staff think that the effort they put in this time was worth it and, more importantly, where they would do the same thing next time.
Firstly, workers want to hear the top people in the company, including the CEO Willy Walsh, say thank you. And not just internally – publicly and explicitly in the media. One thing is for sure, he will get plenty of opportunity in the next few weeks. Secondly, they want their line manager to say thank you to them directly and in fact, BA should now be specifically directing their line managers to do this in the coming days.
Next, I think that the staff should expect to see some token of the company’s appreciation for their extra efforts. This could be a bonus payment, but there are other options as well: For example, what about offering them an extra day’s leave to be taken any time in the next 6 months so that it doesn’t bring operations to a halt. Yes, this would incur a cost to BA, but in the long run would that cost be greater or lesser than the cost of doing nothing?
And I think this is my point – it’s so easy for leaders and managers in these situations to focus on what’s just happened and think “Phew! We’re out of the woods now – let’s get back to business”. But this fails to acknowledge the contribution of huge numbers of dedicated people who have gone out of their way to solve an embarrassing problem which was mostly caused by poor management decisions in the first place.
The right mindset is more like “Our people were amazing this week and there will be a situation where we need them to be amazing again in the future – How do we make sure they’re willing to do this for us when the time comes?”
Do you have any views? Have you found interesting ways of thanking staff for extraordinary contributions? Please leave a comment.
No Comments » | Leadership, Management, Well-being, reward and recognition | Tagged: leaders, managers, reward, Staff morale | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
March 9, 2008
In my last post I talked about the blend of reward and recognition that really works for employees. Shortly afterwards I came across some survey results reported by Personnel Today which indicated the areas that HR Directors will be prioritising in the coming year. The study of 2,033 employers, by recruitment firm Manpower, found that increasing workforce productivity was the top HR priority for 2008, moving it up the agenda from fourth place in 2007.
I guess this isn’t that surprising given the uncertain nature of the economy and also the current climate where getting more results for less money has become a mantra - a way of working life even. But it worries me because it raises the question of how sustainable this approach is ever likely to be. Last week I was talking about the importance of making workplaces motivating and energising in relation to attracting and retaining the best staff. Another way of looking at this is that you can design sustainable success and competitive advantage into your business. But if you keep increasing the pressure in an effort to squeeze every last drop of productivity out of the workforce it won’t be long before the wheels come off.
Sometimes you have to take a step back to look for the right source of competitive advantage. By getting the balance of challenge and support right and creating a culture of well-being you can, in fact, still improve productivity. This might sound woolly or unrealistic or just a crazy way to come at the problem, but the research backs it up. Work by Harter, Schmidt and Hayes has shown that well-being and engagement are very definitely associated with improving productivity.
Data from nearly 8,000 separate business units in 36 companies were analysed and the results clearly showed that engagement/well-being was linked to business unit performance - predicting not just productivity but also customer satisfaction, profitability, employee turnover and sickness absence levels. Using a sample of business units this large offers conclusive evidence that if you provide a sense of well-being and engagement to staff the positive outcomes will follow.
Another survey reported by Personnel Today in the same article informs us that 75% of the136 HR directors recently surveyed by Northgate HR also reported that employee productivity was the top HR concern. But workforce morale and reward & recognition strategies were not very far behind. Based on the Harter et al research evidence it seems that employers could make significant progress on all of these fronts just by getting well-being right - but I wonder what proportion the HR Directors responding to these surveys have actually invested in business-wide well-being improvement programmes?
For anyone who wants to seek out the research, the reference is below:
Harter, Schmidt and Hayes, (2002). Business unit level outcomes between employee satisfaction, employee engagement and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 268-279.
1 Comment | Engagement, Productivity, Well-being, reward and recognition | Tagged: improving well-being, Productivity, recognition, reward, Stress, Well-being, workforce sustainability | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
February 29, 2008
This week saw the Oscars ceremony come round again and it was great to see that British talent in the film industry was recognised once again. The likes of Daniel Day Lewis, Tilda Swinton and the lesser known names like Suzie Templeton all won much-coveted statues - and I bet they’ve felt great all week!
The Oscars is a particularly public and grandiose form of recognition, but it got me thinking about the kind of recognition our workforces find most motivating and how this compares with the experience of Hollywood actors.
You can’t talk about reward and recognition without mentioning money - it will, of course, always be important to people. Imagine you had a UK worker in a room with an Oscar nominee and you asked them both whether they would rather receive an internationally recognised award or a pay rise - I think you’d get very different answers from each of them. Obviously, this is partly because the actor already has plenty of money, but it’s also partly because in the UK (as in many other countries) we measure our success largely by how much money we earn, as opposed to how good we feel. Or at the very least most people assume that having money will make them feel good.
However, there have been some changes in this area of late because potential recruits now place more importance on the non-monetary aspects of a job than ever before. Recruiters who compete in the ‘war for talent’ have been starting to find that being seen as ‘an employer of choice’ is critical for securing the best people ahead of their competitors. Employers have discovered that applicants value aspects of employment that go well beyond pay – such as the potential to work flexibly, having high levels of autonomy and whether the organisation feels good to work in.
This picks up on some of the points that my colleague Ivan Robertson was making when he was a guest on my blog recently – that is, that leading organisations now know that paying the best salary is not enough to attract and retain the top people – staff stick around and give you their best when they buy into the vision painted by the organisation’s leaders and when they enjoy and are recognised for their work. These conditions, combined with pay that they see as fair reward for their contribution, are a recipe for success.
And it’s probably not that different for Hollywood actors – the pay is usually higher, but the principle is the same: Doing work that they feel is worthwhile for the right rewards and with recognition from respected peers and the public is a blend that leads to their best performances. As Confucius once said “choose a job that you like and you will not have to work a day in your life”.
No Comments » | Talent, reward and recognition | Tagged: Motivation, reward and recognition, war for talent | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
