Office Productivity: What Do Employees Want?
How do you retain the best staff and keep your work force motivated? From concierge desks providing on-site laundry service to free child & doggy daycare, America’s leading corporations have tried offering their employees some serious perks. But do companies really know what their employees want? One post-war study may prove otherwise.
Click here to view the infographic and to reveal what Genetech, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Quicksilver and SC Johnson offer their staff and learn more about the key Foreman Facts published in 1949 by the Labor Relations Institute of NY.
60 Years Later Somethings Haven’t Changed in the Office
In a period spanning the arrival of the PC and the advent of the internet, everything our workplaces change constantly and rapidly except for one thing – what people want! The Foreman Facts survey completed in 1946 and re-published by Lawrence Lindahl in Personnel magazine, in 1949 reveals some lasting truths:
Here is what employees say they want, starting with what’s most important to them:
- Full appreciation for work done
- Feeling “in” on things
- Sympathetic help on personal problems
- Job security
- Good wages
- Interesting work
- Promotion/growth opportunities
- Personal loyalty to workers
- Good working conditions
- Tactful discipline
Now, take a look at what managers think employees want, starting with what they think is most
important:
- Good wages
- Job security
- Promotion/growth opportunities
- Good working conditions
- Interesting work
- Personal loyalty to workers
- Tactful discipline
- Full appreciation for work done
- Sympathetic help with personal problems
- Feeling “in” on things
The Role of Emotional Intelligence
As workplace specialist Susan Dunn commented: “The discrepancies in these two lists of priorities show a decided lack of empathy on the part of managers – the ability to sense how others feel.
You’ll also notice that the top 3 things employees want require “soft” skills. Employees want to feel they’re appreciated, which requires the manager be able to show this. This is not giving gold stars or a $1,000 bonus. It means speaking from the heart and showing your feelings. Letting the employee know they matter to you and are noticed.”
Staff want to feel “in” on things. “They want to feel connected and the good manager must have the interpersonal skills to establish this connection”. Feeling “in” on things means being included in the process of office relocation or interior re-design.
The inherent flexibility of a serviced office space, allows employers and staff to concentrate on their core business within a productive environment configured their specification, while the serviced office provider takes care of all the I.T., security, cleaning and maintenance that can distract from management focus.
Clearly, getting the best employees and then keeping them, is a perennial problem faced by employers. So, what is the best way to do this? Perhaps, by starting to consider and prioritise the criteria that employees actually said they really wanted way back in the forties.
Source: These studies have been replicated with similar results by Ken Kovach (1980); Valerie Wilson, Achievers International (1988); Bob Nelson, Blanchard Training & Development (1991); Sheryl & Don Grimme, GHR Training Solutions (1997-2001). Using Your Emotional Intelligence to Get and Retain Good Employees by: Susan Dunn (2003), Mindflash web development & start-up guru Holy Kaw (2011)