Psychological safety nets

Psychological Safety Nets are important to create the effective culture 

You can smell the organizational culture by entering the office. You sense it through the approach of the security guard, receptionist, the behaviour of office boys and the overall atmosphere you feel. If you keep observing, you may get more clues about the organization. I know that we should not judgmental based on our primary interactions, but unfortunately the culture that you observe is cascaded down by the top management. Sometimes you sense the invisible pressure among employees, sometimes, you sense a vibrant and cheerful atmosphere. In some organizations, laughing, joking is not allowed, however in some organizations work is fun. It is upto the management what culture they want to create. One of the friends shared that in his organization being active on social media is not considered positively. However, in most of the organizations social media is a tool of branding, marketing and increasing the business. Different people will have different perspectives but being logical is the key to success.

"Some Managers believe that employees should be controlled to get the maximum benefits. However, they forget that the presence of fear in an organization is the first sign of weak leadership. After working with different Indian and multinational organizations and working closely with the leadership team, I can co-relate human being’s basic needs.

My observations are

Human beings want to be included. They are productive when they feel that they are the part of the team, group, tribe, and overall ecosystem.

They want to grow: Human beings want to grow in life in two ways, financially and in their career. In this process they want to learn to earn both, salary increase and career development.    

They want to contribute to the organization if you keep them motivated towards their purpose. If their purpose is aligned, they will go the extra mile.

And finally, they want change when they believe things need to change. They will come up with suggestions, solutions on how we can change. They will be the part of change. 

Now to do this we need to create the ecosystem in the organization where employees feel safe while doing any legitimate activities in the organization. They expect psychological safety. It is organizational responsibility to create such safety nets within the organization.  

"When psychological safety is secured, people take more accountability and ownership. They use their discretionary effort, resulting in learning and problem solving. When there is a fear people use their energy thinking risks and hardly opening their mouth. They choose to be selective and only speak that managers and top management like to listen to.

How do you create such an ecosystem?  

Inclusion: Organizations who were serving strictly veg food because of owners’ values, started serving non-veg food when they expanded in different geographies and continents. It was necessary to be inclusive and by doing this they exercised the inclusion where employees felt that their needs were taken care of.            

Allow to fail: When organizations stimulate learning by any means and reward the learning, employees try to take risk by doing different things. Learning means not necessary just having training programmes. It also means doing things differently, working on change, and taking risks. During this process, there are possibilities of failures, and when people fail, leaders need to reward the failure. Failure stories and learning from those should be encouraged.

Empowerment: Getting people on board and empowering them is necessary to get the contribution from them. Empowerment and freedom of doing the job makes the environment more productive.

LinkedIn conducted a study to identify the most important soft skills. One of the top skills is creativity. But creativity doesn’t come when people are under pressure and have the fear to express. When people feel free and are empowered to apply their creativity, they make wonders. If they are not allowed to challenge, they will never speak; they will not be creative. During this process healthy conflicts need to be allowed. When there’s censure or punishment, when intellectual conflict turns into interpersonal conflict, when fear becomes a motivator, the process collapses, and people go silent.

Safety nets are necessary in any ecosystem to create the psychological safety in the organizations. If you want results, give freedom and make the environment safe.  

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organizations, current or past) 

Author's book are available on Amazon, Flipkart, Pothi and BookGanga 

Vitality in Human Resource is now available in paperback edition. Please click here to buy

Buy Industrial Relations Strategy Framework For Every Manager on amazon. Click IR Strategy Framework.

Trust Capital

Everybody is aware about different capital employed in organisations like man, machine money etc. But do you know that there is another type of capital which is imperative in any organisation. And that is “trust capital”. This can’t be created by anybody else, but it is created by the leaders. But the fundamental question remains, ‘how to create that trust capital?’ We all know what trust means. Trust is one of the important elements in leadership. But how are we going to create that trust among employees? Employees expect that the organisations and specifically leadership team and managers trust their employees, they are respected, valued and their contribution is recognised. They reciprocate it by demonstrating their trust in the leadership. 

Trust capital is directly proportional to the cultural index of the organization and your leadership mindset. The more transparent, genuine, and empathetic your leadership is, the more trust by the employees.  During this pandemic few organizations are going the extra mile to support employees, however there are few other organizations who are asking employees to work from office and reducing their salaries. In the first case, organizations are creating the trust capital, in later it is just a business. Employees would keep this in mind always.

If you don't have trust in your team, you tend to micromanage your team, hold the knowledge within yourself, become insecure. This is again reciprocated by employees. When people don’t trust you, it becomes obvious in their behaviour.

The fundamental question is how to create the trust capital?

Trust capital has the following vital elements.

Elements of Trust Capital

Credibility: Every leader has to establish his/her credibility in the organization. Credibility is pursued by employees and by the people at large based on their experience with you, based on the behaviour you demonstrated in the past. It also means while communicating, how genuine you are with the people, how transparent you are in your behaviour. When you are credible, people trust what you say.  

Reliability: Cambridge dictionary has defined the meaning of reliability as “the quality of being able to be trusted or believed because of working or behaving well”. Employees are always watching their leaders, when they observe the gap between saying and doing, they would not trust you.

Consistency: Consistency is referred to as adherence to the same principles in a steadfast way. It also means your behaviour is the same for similar actions where employees believe that the leader is not unfair. S/he is consistent. If you want to be trustworthy, then you need to be consistent in your efforts towards creating the trust capital.

Empathy: Emotional intelligence is the crucial leadership trait. You can learn it with some effort. One of the elements of emotional intelligence is empathy. Unless you don’t put yourself in the shoes of others, you will not understand their emotions. If you demonstrate empathy, it is easy to connect and decide your strategy to deal with the person.   

Insight- Self vs Others: While you are demonstrating above all behaviours, it is very important you do it with right intentions. The first question you should ask is, am I doing with right intentions? Is my focus primarily on ‘myself’ or ‘others’? Am I self-centered and thinking more about only myself? Your trust index will be impacted if your focus while dealing with people is more on you and less on others.  

When every leader, every manager and every employee demonstrates above behaviours, it creates collective trust capital in the organization. If you want to calculate the trust capital index, just rate the behaviour on the scale of 1 to 5 on Credibility, Reliability, Consistency and Empathy; divide the sum total by Insight score. Insight score can be given high (5) when intentions focuses towards more on self, (it means you have limited insight of others, you are more self -centered) and minimum (1), when it is towards others, (it means you focus others also and have the insight of their feelings).

Trust Capital Index

Trust is an important part of any relationship. You can build your trust capital individually. If all come together, then you along with others can create the trust capital in the organization, society, or family. You jointly can create the collective trust capital by being authentic and demonstrating the right behaviours.      

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organizations, current or past) 

Author's book are available on Amazon, Flipkart, Pothi and BookGanga 

Vitality in Human Resource is now available in paperback edition. Please click here to buy

Buy Industrial Relations Strategy Framework For Every Manager on amazon. Click IR Strategy Framework.

Industry 4.0 - People & Cultural Imperative

Smart Manufacturing: - Cultural Imperative

(This article is written by Vinod Bidwaik & Swanand Deshapande with inputs from Rahul Bagale) 

On 24th Jan 2020, Kalinga Management Institute and Kontempore organised a good session on Smart Manufacturing where almost 20 senior HR, Operational Excellence and Manufacturing professionals came together and deliberated on different aspects of smart manufacturing. There were 4 groups who discussed about People, Process and Technology. Overall it was a great discussion, however in such discussions, participants tend to discuss a lot generic stuff and this needs to be made clearer in view of changing technology.

I realised that I should take this topic for further discussion on my blog. I also have my certain views on this topic and let’s discuss what is all about.

Smart Manufacturing is that way of working where computer-integrated manufacturing- like Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Robots, PLCs and automatic machines are deployed. It also means manufacturing processes have high levels of adaptability and rapid design changes. Digital information technology is used widely; the workforce is multitasking and flexible. In Smart Manufacturing processes are well defined, design is simple & lean and workforce is super capable to handle technology and rapid changes. Industry 4.0 is the next step in smart manufacturing. It requires continuous innovation because lifecycle of products & technology will be going to get shorter & shorter.

In such scenario what are those people elements we need to consider? There are many. There were few questions we need to ask while working on Industry 4.0

• What is your people strategy and future talent requirements? (People Strategy)
• What kind of workforce you need? (Skills, Capabilities and Competencies)
• How do you build that capabilities to work in Industry 4.0? (Talent Management & People development) 
• What are those cultural elements we need to consider? (Organizational Culture) 
• How effectively you will implement this change? (Change Management)

Let’s discuss one by one:

People Strategy: While designing any strategy you need to keep in mind, the customer and the market in which you are operating. Always keep in mind the consequences of the strategy on end customer. This is applicable in all strategies in the organization. For this you need to evaluate the current situation, what customer expects, and what are those changes you need to work on. 

It is well explained in the following diagram.

Future Workforce: We need a workforce which is agile, flexible with right mindset. Entitlement mindset will not have any roles in the organization. There will be more roles with individual contributors instead of team leader’s role. People will have to operate multiple machines, robots, 3 D printing machines. They need to learn, understand those machines. Machines will be much more complex mechanical parts will be integrated with electronic parts & then finally with software & internet.  If there are some issues while operating, they also need to know the troubleshooting. For this technical knowledge with analytical skills and problem-solving skills will be required more. Teams will be more empowered, and they will be able to take decisions on the shop floor about the product quality. Concept of dual role started in many organizations due to few roles becoming redundant. Hence, multi-talented employees will be in demand & for sure they will be assets of any organization. Future workforce of India needs to excel, since we are not that much agile while contributing to job. Concept of freelancer/Gig worker started taking its shape, such gig jobs will be evolving by reducing full time requirement. 

Demographics of workforce shall change; team shall consist of young as well as experienced people. They both will operate from different consciousness & maturity. Old people will bring in experience & young people will bring in fresh ideas. The main challenge is to create confluence of old & young in order to make them work collaboratively on a common goal. 

Workforce required in smart manufacturing shall be open to learn & adaptable. The rate of change in technology will be much faster & will exceed our ability to adapt. Self-learning & curiosity will help us adapt that fast-paced technological change. In the era of smart manufacturing skills are perishable. Everyday, we are hitting with new technological challenge & hence today’s skills will be outdated tomorrow. So, we need people who can self-learn, curious, agile, adaptable & multi skill. 

Talent Management & People Development: This is crucial even today, but going forward, HR have to focus on skilling and re-skilling their employees. You have to define talent philosophy practically. Gig economy will change the dimensions of the workforce. You need to figure out ways to make your talent more flexible, agile and technically sound in the areas they operate.

There will be scarcity of ready to perform talent availability.  So, hire for the right attitude or difficult to develop competencies (as stated in above points) and train for skills. Creating tour of duties to fulfill budding aspiration will be a challenge & polices needs to flexible for that.  Many jobs will perish & new kind of jobs will be created to meet the requirement of IIoT. 

People Development: In future, people having ability to impact on organization results will only survive. Hence, employee needs to go work extra miles to take next role will be preferred. By coming out from your comfort zone and acquiring knowledge will be pathway for the future. For career growth one needs blends of variety of sectors including manufacturing, consulting, FMCG to understand challenges of other sectors.

Culture and Change Management: This is a big change management. Identify the

theme and create your culture agenda to work in the Industry 4.0. 

Industry 4.0 shall require a culture of learn fast & fail fast. Mistakes should not be treated as a sin. Culture should allow people to think out of the box & experiment to meet changing demands of technology & clients. How you take decisions will matter. Teams need to involve every stake holder while making decisions. On the other hand, this should not consume a lot of time in order to beat the high rate of change. Challenges should inspire people to do more & achieve more.  

Industry 4.0 will require involvement of stakeholders even outside organization. Clients, outsourced technology partners, suppliers should be involved at right place in order to create sustainable products & technology. 

Culture should encourage risk taking (of course calculated) & inspire people to take initiative and lead. It should also facilitate constant learning, sharing of experiences. Creating such learning platform online & offline will foster innovation. 

Performance management should measure people on team’s performance/ delivery and not focused on individual goals. Successful deployment of product, technology will be a key goal to look for. Behaviors such as collaborative different views, putting team’s objective above self, empathetic listening, taking initiatives & being emotionally intelligence will contribute to the team's success. 

Leadership will require a big shift. Carrot & stick approach will not work. There will always be better ways of doing things. Gone are the days of leadership who says, ‘My way is Highway’. Democratic leadership which intends to collaborate on different ideas will thrive. Micro-management shall be the last thing to do. Leadership will cascade down the culture. Leaders must earn respect, colleagues/subordinates will not respect you only because of experience & age. Leaders need to be on the job with the people. Participative & servant leadership only will create right ‘Smell of the Place’ for Industry 4.0. 

Culture should allow different leaders to emerge in a different situation. Every situation & challenge will demand different skills & leadership style. One size doesn’t fit all.  No single leadership style will sustain. 

People will face change very often & hence they should not view change as a threat to them. Why most change management attempts fails? : Is because people feel insecure & make it a question of their survival. Once this happens, they only focus on survival not proliferation or growth. Following strategies may help change succeed:

• Make people part of the change & let them drive it. 
• Make people clear of: ‘What's in it for them?’ 
• Show people the fruits of change & explain them how it is good for them
• Train people on emotional intelligence so that they won’t operate from reptilian brain and think logically. 
• Appoint change ambassador in sphere of organization so that they watch it carefully & drive it democratically. 
• Take constant feedback from people & change ‘Change management strategies’ if required. 

Constant change is inevitable in Industry 4.0 & it should become part of people’s lives. 

Conclusion

Industry 4.0 will be an exciting as well as challenging future in terms of technology & people. Every day, people need to sharpen their saw in terms of skills. Developing, retaining & creating talent will be hard task for HR on the backdrop of high rate of change. Culture shall play a vital role in smart manufacturing as it will drive required behaviors for successful journey in this new era.  Constant emergence of new leadership along with change champion strategies stated above will make Industry 4.0 more fun place to work. As everything’s is revolving around the customer, change is vital in the organization. However, at the same time CEOs are expecting ROI less than 3 years, hence typically working on margins is crucial for head of business. Let’s gear up for it! 

What do you think? What are those capabilities we need to develop in view of Industry 4.0? What are those Skills, Capabilities and Behaviours? Please click on comments to respond.

Advertisements and gender

In my childhood, when we would watch TV, we usually were equally interested in commercials broadcasted on Door Darshan. It was the only channel that time. Commercials were not much professionalized and were at early stage.  Today the world has been changed. Consumerism is pampered, branding is important and advertisements are required to sell your product. Life style has been changed, disposable income is at hand. There are lots of avenues available to spend the money. Most of the time, you don’t need cash in your bank account.

This all has been major impact on our life. Companies muscle consumer ego while selling their products.

Our personalities are used to sell the product. There is a struggle between our “ego” which wants “pleasure” and our “superego” which asks us the “reason”. However pleasure has been dominant on your super ego (reason). In fact, advertising and marketing strategy is to create this struggle. Products symbolically satisfy consumers pleasure needs, substitute the product for the real thing.

However the question is why pleasure is co-related to sex by these companies? Every commercial in TV, Print etc has fundamental message that “if you own the particular product, you will get the pleasure” (which is acceptable), but then they go further and propagate, “if you own the particular product, you will get your dream woman where sexuality is explicitly broadcasted.

India is more sensitive and such issues, after the Nirbhaya case and sensitization towards gender equality; it is the question why such ads are broadcasted.  

Why does advertising use sex as an appeal to the consumer? Because it works. Sex is the second strongest of the psychological appeals, right behind self-preservation. Sexual desire’s strength is biological and instinctive. For many products it is possible to find (or invent) a sexual connection. The effectiveness of sex in advertising is gender linked. Men have minimal criteria for sexual desire. Basically, they are concerned with a woman's anatomy -- as long as a woman looks young enough and healthy, she is desirable.

In advertising it is easy to get a man's attention by using women's bodies and associate getting the woman if he buys the product. In general, female models are placed in sexually exploitative and compromising positions, sexually submissive postures, and with sexually connotative facial expressions. Media definitions of sexual attractiveness promote either extreme thinness or a thin waist with large hips and breasts. The sexual connection is much easier to set up for men than for women.  

At the other side, the use of sex in advertising to women is more difficult. Although the use of healthy, fit men may attract their attention and create desire, willingness to engage in intercourse is rarely aroused strictly because of a man's body. For a woman, sexual desire is a complex mixture of such factors as money, power, prestige, etc. To sell to a woman, advertising relies on that modern idea about how men and women relate -- romance. Although an ad may use a man's body as an attention getting device, he is usually shown in a romantic rather than sexual context.  

They assume unconscious motives influence consumer behavior. So called market research tries to identify these underlying unconscious forces (e.g., cultural factors, sociological forces).

Marketers should therefore better understand the target audience and how to influence that audience by engaging other strategies. After all women should not be viewed as an object and should be equally respected.

What Makes a Good Workplace? Part-7

Item 11: "In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress."

We have all had the infamous annual or semi-annual job performance review with our manager. The first two minutes of the review are usually focused on what the manager likes about us and our work, and the remaining 58 minutes are spent on our "areas of opportunity" (the things we are weak at and should improve upon). We usually walk out of this meeting feeling deflated and, while we have a clearer understanding of what we don't do well, we have little understanding of what we do well.

The best managers recognize that this time to discuss the progress and growth of employees is an opportunity to help them understand themselves better and to give them a clear perspective on how their contributions are really making a difference to the organization. This is why the value of quality, individualised feedback is one of the 12 key discoveries.

One of the paradoxes of hiring and retaining talented employees is that they tend to lack an intuitive understanding of how their talents manifest themselves in specific behaviors. They need objective feedback as to how they can focus these talents to become more productive -- feedback managers can provide. Such managers understand that, because talents are innate and natural, it is impossible to not use one's talents. So, instead of trying to change individual employees through centering on their weaknesses, great managers feel compelled to help them gain self-understanding and knowledge about the talents they possess and how they are applied every day at work.

Talent never becomes "talented" until an employee has a role that uses that talent. Great managers are always holding up a mirror to employees and encouraging them to "look in the mirror"-- to know themselves well and to know the roles in which they will most likely succeed. The world's greatest managers can answer some basic questions about every one of their employees. Some of these are:

·         what do employees enjoy the most about their current and previous work experiences

·         what attracted them to come to work for the organization

·         what keeps them there

·         what are employees' strengths, talents, skills and knowledge

·         what are their goals for their current roles

·         how often would they like to meet to discuss their progress

·         are they the kind of people who will tell me how they're feeling or will I have to ask

·         what are their personal goals or commitments

·         what is the best praise and recognition they have ever received

·         what have been the most productive relationships they have had with a mentor or manager and what made them so special Talent only responds in relationship to another human being.

Thus, feedback must be specific to the individual, and must be given in the context of a positive employee-manager relationship. The last words of Item #11 -- "my progress" -- are a significant part of this Item. Employees must walk away from any discussion of their growth with a clearer understanding of who they are, instead of who they are not.

Item 12: "This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow."

The need to learn and grow is a very natural instinct for human beings. Finding more efficient ways to do our jobs is one way we learn and grow. Where there is learning, there is innovation and a breeding ground for a more positive and refreshing perspective toward our perceptions of self and others.

In today's work environment, productivity does not come from working harder; it comes from working "smarter." This is why work environments that reinforce and promote learning are attractive to employees.

We have all worked with people who have stopped learning and growing. They suddenly have all the answers, and become unable or unwilling to see alternative solutions. Their attitude infects both the workplace culture as a whole and their coworkers, individually. It limits the very growth and innovation that creates competitive advantages for today's companies. Why do people become unwilling to learn and grow? Because learning and growing involve risk--the risk of challenging the status quo. Change brings about unfamiliarity, and with unfamiliarity comes insecurity.

Great managers recognise that they face a challenge every day: How do you create a culture that is open to new ideas and allows employees the opportunity to explore possible implications of those ideas without fear of rejection or retribution? Great managers know that, initially, good ideas are not always perfectly thought-out, executable strategies. Good ideas are often abstract, and need discussion so they can be defined and sculpted toward the best possible outcomes. This process takes time and energy; time and energy are limited resources. Nevertheless, the investment of time and energy is imperative to making good ideas useful. For employees, the creation of a culture receptive to new ideas also involves significant belief and trust in their managers and teams.

A company's future is dependent upon the learning and growth of its individual employees who are close to the action. Great managers, employees and teams are never quite satisfied with current ways of doing things. They always feel a slight tension about finding better, more efficient ways to work. 

(END)

What Makes a Good Workplace? Part-6

Item 9: "My associates (fellow employees) are committed to doing quality work."

Highly productive employees tell us there is a vast difference between being named to a team and actually identifying with that team. We have all experienced being assigned to a team or a workgroup--our manager assigns us, and our name is added to the team roster. Just because our names are added, however, doesn't mean that we psychologically join the team, especially if we are afraid the other team members don't share our commitment to producing quality work. Helping all members identify the team characteristics that will result in a quality product can lead to insights into greater efficiency and increased productivity. Trusting that one's co-workers share a commitment to quality is a key to great team performance.

When employees are asked, "Are you committed to quality?" they all answer in the affirmative. This reflects employees' natural, human tendency to think highly of the work they produce. Since they all give the same answer to this question, however, the question does not differentiate the most productive workgroups from those that are less productive. Instead, employees' answers to the question, "My associates are committed to doing quality work," are much more revealing. Employees want their co-workers to share their commitment to quality, and want to be part of an organisation that challenges and enables them to excel.

Often, the definition of quality sets the tone of a workplace culture. If quality is defined as the absence of defects or mistakes, we send a strong message to employees that encourages them to cover up mistakes or problems quickly, with little attention or exposure. In the best workplaces, managers realize that human beings will make mistakes, and can learn from correcting them. In these workplaces, quality is defined as the process employees use to recognize a problem and work toward its solution. In healthy workplaces, employees understand that a customer's loyalty can actually increase if the employees take a positive approach toward solving a quality problem. The best managers and workgroups do not scapegoat; rather, they see quality issues as a challenge to improve their product or service and, thus, to increase customer loyalty.

A problem can also bring out a greater sense of teamwork in a workplace. Employees who are committed to doing quality work look at a problem as a challenge to improve their team cohesiveness. They use the power of the team not only to overcome the crisis, but to correct the process to avoid future problems, and move on to greater productivity and quality. Interestingly, some of the most productive teamwork is observed during these times of crisis. The excellence and the spirit of teamwork that emerge from dealing effectively with problem situations are the stuff of great workplaces.

Item 10: "I have a best friend at work."

Human beings are social animals, and work is a social institution. Often, it is a place where long-term relationships are formed, from networking relationships, to friendships, to marriages. In fact, if you did not meet your spouse in college, chances are you met him or her at work. The evolution of quality relationships between people is a very normal process, and is an important part of a healthy workplace. In the best workplaces, employers recognize that employees want to forge quality relationships with their coworkers, and that company loyalty can be built from such relationships.

This item -- "I have a best friend at work" -- is clearly one of the most controversial of the 12 traits of highly productive work groups. In answering this item, many employees do not stumble over the word "friend" since they have many friends at work. Instead, they may get stuck on the word "best" because they feel the term implies exclusivity, and they have trouble identifying one "best friend" among their friendships with their coworkers.

Gallup discovered the power of this item in identifying talented work groups -- that the strongest agreement with this item occurred in the most productive work groups. Because some employees had difficulty with the item, Gallup went back to those groups and softened the word "best" to "close" or "good," or excluded the word "best" entirely. When this was done, however, the item lost its power to differentiate highly productive work groups from mediocre work groups. This suggested that the item's use of the word "best" actually pinpoints a dynamic of great work groups.

Gallup has also observed that employees who report having a best friend at work were:

·         43% more likely to report having received praise or recognition for their work in the last seven days

·         37% more likely to report that someone at work encourages their development

·         35% more likely to report coworker commitment to quality

·         28% more likely to report that, in the last six months, someone at work has talked to them about their progress

·         27% more likely to report that the mission of their company makes them feel their job is important

·         27% more likely to report that their opinions seem to count at work

·         21% more likely to report they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day

While companies often pay significant attention to the loyalty employee’s feel toward the organization, the best employers recognize that loyalty also exists among employees toward one another. All employees have "leaving moments" when they examine whether to leave or stay at an organization. The best managers in the world observe that the quality and depth of the relationships that employees have with others on the job will be a critical component that affects their decision to stay or to leave.

This item also cuts to the issue of trust between coworkers. When strong loyalty is felt in an employee work group, employees believe that their coworkers will help them during times of stress and challenge. In this day of rapid-fire change, reorganization, mergers and acquisitions, having best friends at work may be the true key to effective change integration and adaptation. While employees who have best friends at work do not report lower levels of stress on the job compared to those who do not have best friends, they do identify significantly higher levels of healthy stress management. 

(Continued...)

What Makes a Good Workplace? Part-5

Item 7: "At work, my opinions seem to count."

All employees want to feel that they are making significant contributions in their workplaces. The ways organisations hear and process employees' ideas will shape, to a large degree, whether or not they feel valued for their contributions.

The need for employees to feel valued--to know that they really make a difference in their companies and organisations is critical. This is often referred to as employees' "internal stock price." It measures the sense of value that employees feel in their work and toward their organisation. The degree to which a company's employees feel their opinions count is readily apparent to its customers. We have all encountered an employee who felt detached or insignificant, and we know the impact that employee's attitude had on us as customers.

If the ideas, instincts and intelligence of a company's employees are its sustained competitive advantage, then employees' responses to Item 7 are of great importance. Nothing is more demoralising to employees than being excluded from significant decisions--decisions that affect their jobs. Great manager’s consult with employees regularly to make sure those close to the action have input into critical decisions. This does not mean that employees have the final say on decisions that affect their jobs. It does mean that when employee’s desires and managers' decisions differ, the best managers explain the rationale behind their decisions. These managers use the decision-making process to help employees both to see the full scope of a decision, and to understand why the decision was made the way it was. A straightforward explanation can be a real credibility and communications builder.

Great managers never ask employees for their opinions, and then decide to do the opposite, without clearly explaining why. Great ideas are the building blocks for increased efficiency and new product development. Great places to work, in which employees' opinions count, encourage ideas to flow, and to be heard, processed, and refined. Not all ideas will be successfully implemented, but the process of refining ideas is still wonderfully productive: It builds employees' confidence in the company and reinforces to employees that their efforts can make the company better.

Item 8: "The mission/purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important."

Excellence happens only when people have a deeply felt sense of purpose in their lives. Human beings want to belong to something that has significance and meaning. They want to know they are making a difference, and are contributing to an important endeavour. The best workplaces give their employees a sense of purpose, help them feel they belong, and enable them to make a difference.

Having a clear understanding of how an employee's particular role or job contributes to the company's "reason for being" can be an incredible form of emotional compensation. Employees at every level or function like to feel that they belong. Individual achievement is important, of course, but when employees of an organisation feel they are an integral part of a larger whole, they are more likely to stay committed to that organisation. All of us like to feel as though our companies stand for us, represent us, share our values, and have the same kinds of goals. It is more exciting to "share a mission" than simply to "complete a task."

Every individual has a different and unique sense of purpose, and individuals find different meanings in similar situations. Thus, designing the proverbial "mission statement" is not necessarily the solution to helping employees find a sense of purpose in their work. There is nothing wrong with mission statements, but they are often too vague and too broad to allow each employee to connect with them. Think about it. All employees, either consciously or unconsciously, ask themselves, "What is this company's purpose? Does this company look at the world in the same way I do?" Employees all want to know whether their purpose meshes with the company's, and since each one of them looks at the world in a slightly different way, each comes up with a different answer.

Great managers continually strive to help employees understand how the company's purpose/ mission relates directly to the work that employees do. This, in turn, enables employees to find a connection between the company's values and their own. Every employee has different values. Some value competition, others value service, others value technical competence. Great managers translate the company's purpose into language that each employee can understand.

Outstanding workplaces never confuse "strategy" with "purpose." Purpose is constant. It is the heartbeat of the company, and provides the company with power and guidance. It never changes. Strategy provides the answers to the question, "How will we get to where we are going?" Strategies do change. In fact, companies devise new strategies all the time as they try to find the most efficient path toward their business goals. If your company changes strategies regularly, this does not necessarily mean that it lacks a clear purpose. Great organisations emphasise how new strategies support the broader organisational purpose. Great managers always help to keep the distinction clear in each employee's mind. 

What Makes a Good Workplace? Part-4

Item 5: "My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person."

Gallup's research indicates that employees don't leave companies, they leave managers and supervisors. The impact that a supervisor has in today's workplace can be either very valuable or very costly to the organization and the people who work there.

All of us as employees have had the unpleasant experience of having a bad supervisor or manager. Many of us have also experienced the results and benefits of a good one. When Gallup evaluates the difference between bad and good supervisors, it is amazing to see how clear the difference is in the minds of employees. Yet, when we ask employees, "Do you want to be managed?" everyone says "No." Why is this? Because we automatically think of our bad experiences. What if someone who is similar to the best supervisor one has had could manage the employee? Would he or she want to be managed in that case? Yes. So, the issue is really this: What makes a great manager?

Gallup finds that great managers and supervisors possess identifiable talents or recurring patterns of thought, feelings and behaviors. The talents of great managers include:

·         getting a true sense of satisfaction out of seeing their employees grow and succeed, even if the employee's success surpasses that of the manager

·         intrinsically knowing how to match the right person with the right roles to produce the best possible results

·         setting expectations by defining the desired outcome

·         not dissecting every role down to the exact steps needed to accomplish it

·         they help people grow within a role instead of grow out of it

·         they always try to bring out what God left in versus trying to put in what God left out.

Great supervisors genuinely care about the people they work with, and thus treat people according to their individuality rather than treating everyone the same. Supervisors are the filters from which broader organizational changes and initiatives make sense to individual employees and thus gain true acceptance and understanding.

One could speculate that people are not resistant to change; they just don't have the relationships to translate how such modifications will impact them and their jobs.

For years, Gallup has learned from surveys that the credibility of senior management is critical to employee perceptions of the organisation. This led them to consult with CEOs and leaders to encourage them to have greater visibility and clearer communications. Then, three years ago, they made a discovery: Employee perceptions of senior management credibility are largely driven by the quality of relationships employees have with their supervisors. Thus, rather than feeling the need for a town-hall meeting, the CEO should feel compelled to ensure that all employees have a caring relationship with their managers or designates.

Item 6: "There is someone at work who encourages my development."

The innate yearning to learn and grow is natural to human beings. Our jobs allow us to encounter new situations and find new ways to overcome challenges every day. Why, then, do we have a tendency to stall or stagnate?

Every employee should be consciously aware of how he or she is learning and growing.

Conventional management theory has always highlighted the need for employee development. The traditional approach largely involved helping employees to identify their weaknesses, and then creating a plan to correct them. By focusing on their weaknesses, so the reasoning went, employees would become stronger and more productive. While this approach seems to make sense, it has had a significant, unintended consequence: It has emphasized who the employee is not, rather than who the employee is. As a result, the common theme in the management-employee relationship has been a constant determination to change something.

Change can be good and an effective means to improvement, of course, when it encompasses something such as learning a new skill; in the conventional approach, however, management has often tried to change dispositional factors that are part of an employee's wiring or talent. An example of this would be an effort to help employees better manage their time. While there are many tools to aid in this effort, the way one manages his or her time is a recurring pattern of thought, feeling, and behavior-in other words, part of an employee's wiring-not something every employee can be "trained" to do better. Great managers make a clear, definite distinction between what can be trained in and what is already hard wired.

For the past 40 years, development has also meant "getting promoted." Today, it embodies the degree to which employees are growing within their current roles. Most employees want to be promoted, but not if it means doing a job that does not match their individual talents and skills. We have all witnessed the Peter Principle in action: when an employee who is accomplished at a particular job is promoted to supervisor. While this may work, the new position often requires a distinctly different set of talents-talents the promoted employee may not possess. So, in the end, the promotion significantly impacts the quality of life for both the individuals promoted and the people they supervise.

In today's workplace, the concept of "lifetime employment" is passé; the new emphasis is on "lifetime employability." Managers who want to encourage the lifetime employability of their direct reports help them equip themselves with self-understanding and a clear perspective on what roles they will excel in. To accomplish this goal, such managers pursue straightforward discussions with employees. In these discussions, they seek to understand employees' strengths,

talents, and skills, why they accepted a position with their employer in the first place, what keeps them there, what kind of relationships they need to be most productive, desired mode of recognition, and the yearnings and directions the employees wish to follow.

The best managers feel there is nothing very complicated about development. Development involves holding up a mirror to employees and encouraging them to know themselves. As employees come to understand who they are, these managers strive to provide responsibilities that will be a good "fit" for employees' talents. Then, as employees move forward in their self-knowledge, great managers persist in looking for opportunities to make the best use of employees' talents.

(Continued...)