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by Kelly Riggs
“When people are financially invested, they want a return.
When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.”
– Simon Sinek
Most companies talk a good game when it comes to employees.
They usually say the right things. Like: “Our employees are our most important asset.”
Well, of course they are. Until they aren’t. Which usually happens when a company has to choose between happy employees and better performance. They are REALLY important…up to a point, just take a look into these statistics on employee recognition and it can be clear to see many employees aren’t happy within their place of work.
In fact, there seems to be this general notion in large parts of the workplace that leaders can only really choose from one of two different primary objectives. They can either choose to set high standards and pursue stellar results; or, they can choose to put employees first; make them happy, and ultimately settle for something further south of stellar.
As though one necessarily negates the other.
Which, by the way, is a crock. But it is a war of sorts: High Performance vs. Happy Employees. And you’ve got people on both sides. In some cases, the people on each side are Boomers and Millennials. Sort of a Hatfields and McCoys thing, except in the workplace.
That said, leaders generally tend to publicly espouse the whole “our employees are our important asset” idea and all that statement implies, right up until they are confronted with “the real world.” In the REAL WORLD, stakeholders demand increased efficiency, increased market share, product innovation, and better margins, so leaders typically feel pressured to switch gears.
So, that noise you just heard was ‘care and concern’ flying out the window, quickly replaced with a ‘results-at-all-costs’ manager with all the humor and personality of an IRS agent. “Get off your freaking phone and get to work…”
So, it’s one or the other – you either make employees happy or you get results. You can either hire Mr. Kumbayah and create a cool place to work, or you can snag Ms. Results-At-All-Costs and actually get stuff done. Painfully.
But let’s tap the brakes for a second. Is there any evidence that ‘high performance’ and ‘concern for employees’ are two mutually exclusive ideas?
Nope. Not at all.
In fact, there is overwhelming evidence that high-performance leaders are those that espouse both high standards and concern for employees equally. Empirical evidence overwhelming connects the dots from “engaged” (happy, satisfied) employees directly to increased productivity, less turnover, and improved customer service.
“…harsh, hard-driving, ‘results-at-all-costs’ executives actually diminish the bottom line…self-aware leaders with strong interpersonal skills deliver better financial performance.”
Green Peak Partners and Cornell University Study
But, there never seems to be a shortage of stories about bad managers with absolutely no clue about the value of employee engagement or the importance of workplace culture.
Martin Winterkorn, the former CEO of Volkswagen, is one of the latest bad examples of leadership willing to sacrifice the workplace on the altar of self-indulgement:
Although the German automaker has had a history of fostering a corporate culture that is “cutthroat and insular,” [former CEO] Martin Winterkorn, who had been at the helm since 2007, may have contributed to the company’s unethical and illegal installation of software that failed to accurately report emissions on its vehicles.
Though he claimed not to be aware of the wrongdoing, Winterkorn is known as being a hard-driving perfectionist who would carry a gauge while he walked around to measure gaps between car doors in relentless pursuit of securing the top spot among global car manufacturers.
His exacting standards, as well as his proclivity for calling employees out publicly to criticize them, may have very well motivated them to hide information in order to keep their jobs-or allowed them to believe it was okay to cheat, as long as it helped the company meet its lofty goals. In reality, rather than hiding information, they would have been better off finding a good whistleblower attorney and being honest about the unethical and illegal software.
So, to recap: A cutthroat culture. A hard-driving perfectionist. Publicly critical of employees. I’m sure those things had little or nothing to do with the Volkswagen debacle, don’t you?
Not if you believe all of the research. Here is an example from recently published findings:
“An employee with a bad manager compared to an employee with a good [manager] performs at a level that is 20% lower,” says Brian Kropp, managing director at CEB. “The impact from having a bad manager can actually drive down employee performance for up to five years.”
OK, so maybe that bad manager is a problem.
But, the challenge, I suppose, is that many corporate leaders see employee engagement and “soft skills” development as little more than holding hands around the campfire and singing folk songs – with a big price tag that can’t be measured in terms of ROI.
But, the fact is, employee engagement skills are not about lowering standards or demanding less than high performance.
In fact, great managers can be demanding and supportive.
They can be great coaches and still address performance issues.
They can raise the bar and still help the employee jump over.
And that impact can most definitely be measured.
What is really amazing is how much companies will spend to effectively reward only average performance. In some cases, according to a recent Forbes article, it does little more than reward attendance:
Today there is a $46 billion market for employee recognition (gold watches, pins, thank-you awards, placques, etc.), and our research shows that companies spend between 1-2% of payroll on such stuff. This is a huge market.
Yet when we looked at where this money goes, we find that 87% of the recognition programs focus on tenure. Yes, that’s right. In some companies, employee rewards are handed out for sticking around.
What our research found was that tenure-based rewards systems have virtually no impact on organizational performance. Did you stay an extra year at your last job so you could get a 10-year pin? I doubt it…
On other hand, our research did find that modern, re-engineered recognition programs can have a huge impact on business performance. Companies that scored in the top 20% for building a “recognition-rich culture” actually had 31% lower voluntary turnover rates! This is a huge statistic. Most CEO’s would pay millions of dollars to reduce voluntary turnover (this is when good people leave on their own). It turns out that a well-designed recognition program can achieve this result.
Think about it: It’s not that companies won’t invest in employees. They just invest in the WRONG FREAKING THINGS!
Creating “happy employees” is not about bigger break rooms and ‘Blue Jean Fridays.” It’s certainly not about a cheap watch or a crystal dish at the end of ten years.
It’s a function of good leadership; leaders who have been identified and trained to create a workplace culture that allows employees to thrive, do their best work, AND feel valued for those contributions.
Consider the following research finding, as reported in a recent HBR article:
A 2015 study, involving 980 respondents from companies with more than 1,000 employees, also suggests a striking connection between recognition and job satisfaction. Seven out of 10 employees who report they’ve received some form of appreciation from their supervisors say they’re happy with their jobs.
Without that recognition, just 39% say they’re satisfied. Here, too, frequency plays a big role. Among employees who were called out for great work in the past month, 80% feel fulfilled at work. That number declines sharply with time: 75% satisfied (recognized in the past 1-2 months); 71% (past 3-5 months); 69% (past 6-12 months); 51% (past 1-2 years); 42% (more than 2 years ago).
You see, when Mr. Whoop Ass is spending all of his time focused on driving the dog sled, and very little time on recognizing the dogs pulling the sled, it tends to create a problem.
“Whaaaaaa?”
Yes. Blindingly obvious. Or so you would think.
And, while it’s not the sum total of effective leadership by any means, recognition plays a huge role in employee engagement, as demonstrated in these study results from Psychology Today taken from a survey of 1,200 U.S. employees:
The report states that, “Workers of all ages, especially the rising Millennial population are motivated by real-time feedback, fun, engaging work environments, and status-based recognition over tangible rewards.”
It’s time for companies to reevaluate their entire approach to talent management – identifying, interviewing, hiring, training, and engaging employees. The truth is very simple:
You will invest significant money in your employees.
You can either invest NOW or you will pay LATER,
but you WILL pay.
You can invest in training your leaders
and creating a great culture, or,
you can pay later in high turnover,
mediocre performance, and lost opportunities.
So, here is the crazy little secret: If you want to create the very best performance in your company, learn how to be a better leader, and create as many effective leaders within the company as possible. If this is something that you know you are struggling with, then you could always get some professional help. If you are looking for a suggestion, then companies such as LifeWorks are experts in employee wellbeing by the way, but there are plenty of other companies that you could use.
But a huge part of the problem is that most companies don’t really understand what actually makes an effective leader.
HINT: It’s not just the ability to get things done.
Leaders get promoted for being awesome at producing results, but leading a team of people to create those results is WAAAAY different.
You don’t have to choose one or the other.
Kelly Riggs is a business performance coach and founder of the Business LockerRoom. A former national Salesperson of the Year and serial entrepreneur, Kelly is a recognized thought leader in the areas of sales, management leadership, and strategic planning. He serves clients ranging from small, privately held companies to Fortune 500 firms. Kelly has written two books: “1-on-1 Management™: What Every Great Manager Knows That You Don’t” and “Quit Whining and Start SELLING! A Step-by-Step Guide to a Hall of Fame Career in Sales.”