Love Your Employees - In Good Times & Bad
By Jamie Danziger
Valentine’s Day is the time to show love and appreciation for the people you care about – your spouse, your friends, your employees. Employees?! Absolutely – and not just on Valentine’s Day! Because not only does recognition and communication help keep your people motivated – it dramatically improves their productivity.
What Employees Want
Unfortunately, there’s a disconnect between what employees want and what employers think they want. In a study first conducted in 1946 and repeated many times since then (“What Employees Want”), 1000 employees were asked to list 10 common workplace rewards in order of their motivational impact. The employees’ managers were then asked what they thought their employees list would look like.
The results have been amazingly consistent almost every single year - and every year the managers’ guesses were overwhelmingly wrong. This is how each ranked their priorities:
Note the difference in the ranking for “full appreciation of work done”. Employees place it high on their list of motivational needs while their managers typically rank it much lower and assume that money is the primary driver of employee satisfaction.
Appreciated Employees are Productive Employees
A recent issue of the Incentive Performance Center newsletter, The Performance Executive, published a great summary of survey results that demonstrate the value and importance of employee engagement. Here’s what they had to say:
- Towers Perrin found that high-engagement firms experienced an earnings-per-share (EPS) growth rate of 28%, compared with an 11.2% decline for low-engagement firms.
- Gallup research indicates that public organizations ranking in the top quartile of employee engagement had EPS growth more than two-and-a-half times greater than organizations that were below average.
- Data from Best Buy shows that stores where employee engagement increased by a tenth of a point (on a five-point scale) experienced a $100,000 increase in annual sales.
- A Manpower survey of call-center customers and employees revealed that centers with high employee satisfaction also have high customer satisfaction, whereas centers with low employee satisfaction have low customer satisfaction.
- A report by the Society for Human Resource Management estimates that by strengthening engagement, Molson Coors saved more than $1.7 million in one year.
- Gallup research has also shown that engaged employees are more productive, profitable, safer, create stronger customer relationships and stay longer with their companies than less engaged employees.
Anyone remember Abraham Maslow? Maslow theorized about “The Hierarchy of Needs” pyramid and the movement of each of us from base needs to self-actualization when describing human behaviour. Maslow believed that we focus on the fulfillment of our lowest unmet need at the time and as those needs are partially fulfilled, we move up the pyramid to higher needs.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Employee Needs
In his book, “PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow”, author Chip Conley has adopted Maslow's hierarchy for the workplace and uses it to describe what he calls the “Employee Pyramid”. At the bottom of the Employee Pyramid, money creates base motivation for employees who simply view their work as a job. In the middle of the pyramid, recognition creates loyalty and a sense of a career and at the top of the pyramid, meaning or the sense of a “calling” in the job creates inspiration within the employee. As employers, we should be doing everything we can to move our employees up the pyramid.
So take some time to show your employees some love (without getting a visit from HR). Recognition for your employees can be anything from simple recognition (recognition is free), to a chocolate heart, to a formal reward and recognition program. Find what’s right for you and let every day be “Love Your Employees Day”.
Make the recruitment, retention and inspiration of your employees your top priority and you’ll see very positive and measurable returns.
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As VP, Operations, Jamie Danziger plays a key role in the on-going growth and success of IQ PARTNERS.
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