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Caring for Employees is not just HRs responsibility

This is not about bad leaders or ineffective managers, it’s about corporate parenting, yes… parenting, or bad corporate parenting. Equate executives to parents and employees to children and what you have is Dad driving around in a Bentley, Mother(middle managers) in her Lexus and the children walking to school wearing Wal-Mart clothing, having $2.00 to spend for lunch and a severe lack of resources such as pencils, paper, books or a computer to do their work.

The children end up misbehaving at school and home, due to lack of attention or constantly being criticized. Then we wonder why the kids (employees) want to leave, or constantly getting into trouble not following the employee handbook or arguing with the customers. I will go on a limb and say its not about money, even though wages in some industries and jobs are to say the least abysmal. Money is a motivator but much further down the list than one would think. Yes we all want things; employees do want cell phones, nice houses, cars, and a good education for their children and cool clothes to wear. But actually its about feeling or not feeling, companies are full employees, who feel unappreciated, now before I loose you and you think this is all about the company violating or taking advantage of employees, its not, it’s about understanding. Americans have been conditioned over the last 50 years to measure our self-worth on our vocation, job, or career. It is the greatest commonality among people in this country…so what do you do? Is the question most asked when meeting someone or when you want to know about that individual. It only makes sense that there is a relationship between how we feel as individuals and how we are treated at work. Here are the amazing, and stunning results which you may have either read about somewhere in some business journal or experienced yourself. Satisfied, happy, energetic and creative employees produce more and are far more efficient with their time, where dejected, unappreciated, burnt out, employees act like bad spoiled children who do nothing more than spend the majority of their time complaining and finding ways to sabotage the department.

I think it has finally happened, a wake up call for corporate America, we need to evaluate how we do business, I’m not talking about some businesses, I’m talking about all businesses, from construction, retail, automotive, technology, to healthcare, and the list goes on. My concern is how executives and middle managers are treating employees, I exclude supervisors as I feel they are one step higher than employees and often get manipulated into taking on more responsibility than they bargained for.

Management for the last 10 to 15 years has created a workplace in which employees are less than happy and content. Employees are being told to work harder and a result of this will be higher wages and better working conditions, unfortunately the employees work harder for a short time, no change in conditions leads to employee apathy and for the wage increase forget about it.

There are organizations out there which are doing a good job and some which are trying; unfortunately this is not the norm. Between lower wages, benefits, layoffs, outsourcing and off-shoring, and the continued growth in executive pay, it is hard to keep a highly charged staff. The result is a diminished relationship between the employee and the customer. And if you did not learn it in business school, hopefully you did on the job, it’s the customer which pays the bills and salaries.

Executives must understand the relationship they have with employees and recognize their leadership or parenting skills can have a direct relationship to employee’s performance and customer satisfaction. There are some simple practices leaders can do to ensure a more satisfying working environment. Attending the orientation of new hires and sharing the organizations mission is very important to the new recruits. Individuals want to know how they fit into this organizations vision. Remember we all want to fit-in and telling employees at the beginning will achieve this. Follow up with a solid training program, not one with a burnt out employee who is overworked, and is given the honorary title of mentor. Have a training program with someone who will explain the job, listen to the employee, encourage creativity and can accurately detail the scope of the position. This is how trust is earned and the employee will feel connected to the department, division and corporation. A little understanding goes a long way, change has occurred in every area of life, so to think employees are to spend 8 hours at work Monday through Friday 8 to 5 and have the weekends off, is un realistic for many jobs managers must be realistic. Flexibility needs to be injected into the workplace, allowing employees to take college classes for higher degrees, stay home to care for a sick child, or make arrangements to move an elderly parent closer to their home, are very important to the employee and it shows compassion and interest in the employees needs.

The truth here is most employees want to do a good job, and they will if they have the environment to do it in. Children thrive in a home which inspires them, is friendly and encourages a sense of harmony and support. We must care for our employees in the same way. Amazingly enough most of this does not require enormous amounts of capital being poured into the organization, but does require a paradigm change. A simple acknowledgement and being sincere in addressing an employee, goes a long way, asking employees how the organization can make things better for them and the customer can have incredible positive results for the organization. If these simple ideas are practiced on a regular basis, it should be no surprise to the leaders who review the Profit and Loss Statement much to frequently to find employee turnover is down, innovation is up and customer satisfaction surveys are at an all time high. And as a result of all this, at minimum you will have a happier workforce and being conservative a substantial increase in your bottom line.      

Work is no laughing matter

This is not an article on humor in the workplace, I tried that and it got rejected! No here we will explore the serious side of work-place fun. In his book ‘Managing to Have Fun’ author Matt Weinstein, states “ although no one can prove there is such a study in existence it is said that children laugh 300 times a day. If we’re lucky adults get in 15 a day. Anecdotal evidence alone tells us that most children under 6 laugh (giggles included) a lot at just about everything that happens to them”. You see we are adults’ experts and we know what is fun and funny and we will tell you how to have fun at your workstation. First lets forget some ideas that Clyde Fahlman, author of ‘Laughing Nine to Five’ he states “Humor in the workplace not only creates a pleasant working atmosphere, it helps relieve stress and boosts moral Humor also enhances productivity and problem solving. In terms of brainstorming, (when you ask your employees) to come up with ideas that will make the line run better, some of the ideas start to get really funny, and sometimes extremely useful, Fahlman says.

If humor is so good, why is it suppressed in the organization? There are a number of reasons the first and most common is; if employees are enjoying themselves they are not doing their work and are not productive. The second which is related to the first, as an employee if you are having fun and have been caught at it, it would seem you do not have enough work and so you will probably get more assignments, which forces employees to walk around all day telling everyone how much work they have to prevent the inevitable. The third which funny enough is a legal consideration and is a directive not only from senior management but also from the Federal Government, regarding poking fun at fellow employees and having fun with them. See the problem is you may go too far and offend them making jokes about gender, culture, race or religious preference. See being a Catholic I can make jokes to other Catholics legally this is ok, we would win this one in court, but if I made some jokes about the Jewish community, I could loose that one just because I don’t understand their humor. I wonder why children of different backgrounds and cultures don’t seem to care about this kind of stuff when they play?

There is no room for humor in today’s organizations with all the downsizing, layoffs, corporate corruption, litigation, constant change, the customer is always right or they’re paying our bills, setting and achieving goals and end of quarter projections and deadlines and …….I feel like throwing up just thinking about this stuff, and I dare not mention the political arena, and world issues. I like Marry Popins theory “ just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down”. If we don’t mix some fun with all this high intense high-pressure corporate climate, we may just as well start reserving our rooms at Bananas Psychiatric Hospital for French Fried Employees. I will probably get an e-mail stating I picked on the French here, but nothing else seem to go so well. 
The following is a list of real acronyms listed from Clyde Fahlman’s web site http//home.teleport.com/~laff9to5/, ADO: Alleged Discriminating Official, ASS: Affective Sensitivity Scale, DAD: Depression after Delivery, FIB: Fisherman’s Information Bureau, LSD: Last Safe Date. I have to think that either some employees or supervisors in these organizations either had great sense of humor or asleep at the wheel, whichever I thought they were cute. 

As I prepared this little article for the journal I thought it would be more credible if I could find some good strong facts and statistics to make it more credible, so I look among my many books on management, business, leadership and, human resources management and in all the books I teach and reference from I could not find any facts on humor or fun in the workplace, which leads me to believe that most of this stuff has little merit.

Most people who work full time spend more than 50% of their waking hours at work, if you can’t seem to have fun in your cubicle, office or around the people you work with I suggest you spend as little time as possible there and when you get home spend the first half hour either tickling your six year old, putting a teaspoon of peanut butter on the roof of your Labradors mouth or watch a few re-runs of Seinfeld, if this does not help, the next day go into work tickle a few of your associates tell your boss to close his eyes and open his mouth put peanut butter on the roof of his mouth and check out his facial expressions.

All You Need Is Love

Listen to Jimmy Buffett, play a few of his favorite tunes.  He sings about vacations, sandy beaches, pirates and good times. You’re sitting in your office shuffling papers, answering phones, responding to e-mails, attending meetings and doing other highly intense productive stuff. Your mind, every so often, wonders and you’re looking forward to Friday or the weekend for relaxation, and if you’re really ambitious, you’re looking forward to the next vacation sometime in July. Something is missing right now.  Something, which will help you enjoy your time at work a little more.

You just had a major disagreement with one of your colleagues.  Carol rejected the proposal you have been working on for the past two weeks, and that leaves you a little frustrated to say the least. As you sit there, your left arm reaches over and turns on the radio to your favorite station, and in an instant, Paul, John, Ringo and George come on and serenade you with  “All you need is love” in that familiar harmony you’re quite used to. After that, John Lennon sings: “All we are saying is give peace a chance.”  Suddenly, your feelings towards Carol start to change.  In a few minutes, your mood has changed 180 degrees, with the comfort of a few words and a popular melody.

It is amazing how music affects us.  Have you ever been driving when a song comes on you haven’t heard in years?  You start to remember what you were doing during the time period when that song was popular.  It can remind you of a loved one or a certain situation you were in, and even if it was sad time, we will still listen and reminisce. The Disney Corporation has conducted extensive research on the effects of music and how it helps create that fun feeling we associate with the theme parks. If you have teenagers, do you ever wonder how they can get any of their schoolwork done by listening to that loud, head-banging music?  Well, educators have found that some people actually concentrate better when listening to music and thus study better.  Music affects how we think. Also, think about the times you’re running with your headset on, or at the gym working out and one of those cool tunes from John Cougar Melloncamp, U2 or 10,000 Maniacs comes on.  Suddenly, you are running faster, working out harder, you’re moving to beat of the music.

Now you’re back in your chair and wondering if you should go down to your local music store and purchase about $1000 in CDs to get you back on track at work. Hang on!  Just like other motivators, music can be a distraction for some. It is not uncommon for people to get wrapped up in the words of a song and attentively listen to them instead of doing their work.  This is not what we want. You need to know if music motivates you to do your work or not. Now, there is music you can listen to out there that does not have words.  Kenny G. plays nice modern tunes on his saxophone.  There is piano and guitar music that may be pleasant to you. Also, National Public Radio plays classical music all day long for those who enjoy some Verdi, Chopin or Mozart just to name a few.
 
Music is also good for stress and tension relief. I think you should try this: Go to the library or the local music store and get a copy of Yanni, or if you would like, sounds of the forest, oceans, or trees blowing. The next day at work, take 15 minutes, close the door, and put a “do not disturb” sign up.  Turn off the lights and just listen to the music or the sounds of the ocean.  Try to visualize yourself being there.  Let this time be your short vacation.  Let this time be your “changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes” as quoted by Jimmy Buffett.

Ask your employees about having music in the work place.  Some organizations have music in the building for all to listen to, and some companies allow their employees to listen to music at their work sites. Make sure it is not distracting to others, and also keep in mind, music is like art.  We all have different tastes.