Work Fit Analysis
Archive
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19-02-2010
Death in the Luge in Vancouver - Is This a Symptom of Something Else? -
22-01-2010
Erwin Rommel - Lessons for Leadership and Management in the 21st Century -
09-12-2009
Christmas Business -
05-11-2009
Functional Foods, Fads or Pharmacy by Another Name -
29-10-2009
Immigration: Populate and/or Perish -
16-10-2009
Suicide by French Workers - A Symptom of Something Deeper? -
08-10-2009
The Ideal Job -
06-10-2009
Gambling - You Bet! -
20-09-2009
Networks and Six Degrees of Separation -
10-09-2009
Mining Human Potential -
10-09-2009
What Can Be Done To Reduce The Toxicity Of Work Stress -
09-09-2009
Happy Employees = Improved Profitability? -
09-09-2009
Relationships.com -
03-09-2009
The Off Season, A Time For Action -
25-08-2009
Late For Work Again -
20-08-2009
Kids In Sport -
20-08-2009
The Economic Meltdown -
12-08-2009
Sporting Parents Behaving Badly -
11-08-2009
Le Tour De France -
11-08-2009
Sporting Careers and Excecutive Performance Coaching -
23-07-2009
Psychology and Golf -
21-07-2009
Mortgage Stress - 8 Ways to Beat It -
09-07-2009
Woman and Perfection -
07-07-2009
Burn - Out In Sport, Over Training and Problem Behaviours -
09-06-2009
The Psychology of State of Origin -
02-06-2009
'A Plague in Your Houses' - Swine Flu and other Epidemics -
28-05-2009
Good Samaritan? Not a Good Idea -
22-05-2009
8 Ways to Grow Old Gracefully -
14-05-2009
On Being Older -
07-05-2009
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes -
07-05-2009
You're All Class -
30-04-2009
Ideas and People, Good for Business -
28-04-2009
The Gordian Knot -
23-04-2009
Man and the Machine -
23-04-2009
Psychological Response To the Global Financial Crisis -
16-04-2009
Boosting Self Confidence -
03-04-2009
Work Environments -
02-04-2009
New Premises -
01-04-2009
Work -
31-03-2009
Pains In the Work Place -
12-03-2009
Young Men Behaving Badly -
26-02-2009
PTSD, The On Going Story -
13-02-2009
Open Plan - Open Question -
11-02-2009
Trucking -
09-02-2009
Out of the Ashes -
19-01-2009
Bikes, Frogs And The Training Budget -
19-01-2009
Change Management -
12-01-2009
Burn Baby Burn
What We Do...
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Article
Happy Employees = Improved Profitability?
09-09-2009
It comes as no surprise that Google Australia was rated the most popular employer in Australia in this week’s BRW survey. The model inherited from the parent company in USA comes with excellent credentials. Sergey Brin and Larry Page developed a management model which has put Google in Fortune magazine’s top 10 of the most favoured employers (based on an annual survey done by Fortune) for several years. What is surprising is that larger companies are taking so long to catch on. Most companies in the top 50 most popular employers in Australia are SME’s. The exception is Deloittes (bless their hearts) who employ over 4000 people.
19 of these companies are the Australian arms of multi-national corporations.
Based on 2005-2007 figures, (A. Sibillin, BRW, May 09) there are some advantages to being a popular employer. Investment in Fortune magazine’s most popular companies to work for between 1998 and 2005 would have earned average annual returns of 14% (twice that expected overall). This hints at a relationship between employee satisfaction and business success.
The skeptics suggest that same expertise which makes for happy employees also makes for efficient performance in all areas of business.
So, what is going on here? Anyone can purchase Gary Hamel’s book “The New Management” and be given a detailed account of how such companies have achieved extraordinary success. Size (or the lack of it) isn’t everything either. Entities such as Google, the Gore Corporation and Whole Foods have increased dramatically in scale, and yet retained the ethos they had at inception.
One thing several of these innovative companies have in common is that their originators do not come from traditional “management” backgrounds. They seem to be more driven by ideas than economics.
Those from a more traditional background have grown up with some powerful assumptions about management and managers. The psychological framework they carry is of an hierarchy, which narrows in numbers and increases in financial rewards as one approaches the top. The more important the decision, the fewer minds are working on it. Also inherent in this hierarchical model is that control and power rest with the few people at the top of the hierarchy. The further up the hierarchy people progress, the further away from “the coalface” they move. This only accentuates the sense of distance between senior executives and the people actually doing whatever it is that that company produces.
People from a traditional management background usually carry a model for leadership based upon the personality characteristics of successful political, military and industrial leaders. Words such as charisma, decisiveness, eloquence and vision spring to mind.
These are powerful psychological forces, and they are reinforced by the promise of wealth, power and status associated with rising to the top of the hierarchy. No wonder then that there is powerful resistance to change, especially where that change threatens to question whether traditional models aren’t necessarily the best way of going about things.
There is a bit of logic in the notion that “the more intellectual firepower that can be brought to bear on a problem, the more likely it is to be solved”.
The usual response to this is to question the efficiency of the process. After all, a dictatorship is a much more “efficient” way of running a country than something as unwieldy as democracy. Democracy does have the small benefit that the people being most effected by the government’s decisions are also the ones who decide who will be the next to be in power.
In the companies that I have previously mentioned, it has been possible to re-design the way people use their time, to make space for innovation. These principles apply no matter what the type of business or service. This re-organisation of the way things are done does not require much imagination, especially with most businesses being internet savvy.
It might well be that entities which manage to switch to more employee friendly flatter management structures which normalise and reward good ideas and performance are the ones which will do best in the long term.
Low staff turnover is one indication of employee satisfaction. Firms which maintain their human assets through the GFC will make the most of the recovery when it comes.
Dr Elizabeth Foley and I have developed a program which combines structures for innovation also incorporating a mindfulness and individual coaching approach. This goes over 6 months and covers the principles I have introduced here. I am happy to discuss this and any other matters.
You can find more by visiting my website.
Latest Articles
-
19-02-2010
Death in the Luge in Vancouver - Is This a Symptom of Something Else? -
22-01-2010
Erwin Rommel - Lessons for Leadership and Management in the 21st Century -
09-12-2009
Christmas Business -
05-11-2009
Functional Foods, Fads or Pharmacy by Another Name -
29-10-2009
Immigration: Populate and/or Perish
