There have been countless studies on whether happier employees make more productive employees. These studies have shown mixed results but generally the answer is no, happier employees are just happier, they are not more productive. One of the outliers, a study that shows that happier employees are more productive, was sponsored by a workplace snack company. And no surprise here, they also found the one of the keys to on-the-job happiness was free snacks for employees.
By contrast, more engaged employees do seem to be more productive. This is the point of a book I often cite, Drive by Daniel Pink. Pink has concluded that employees want Autonomy, the chance for Mastery of their discipline and to work is a company with a Purpose.
But employee happiness and employee engagement are often confused by employers. We’re seeing a lot of this in the Puget Sound Area as employers struggle to find qualified staff. Almost without exception, my clients cannot find people with the requisite skills to fill open positions.
My daughter recently left Starbucks after 14 years to join a venture-funded, tech start-up. Her job involves attracting ‘bro-grammers.’ That’s the invented word for these almost exclusively male programmers that tech companies compete to hire. So my daughter’s company and so many others stock up on free snacks for everyone, stop early on Friday afternoon for ‘beer-thirty’ and generally try to make themselves an employer of choice for the sought-after bro-grammers. I think we’re headed for another dot-com bubble bursting.
But back in the real world, it remains difficult to find skilled staff. So do we coddle staff and try to make work fun?
The opposite extreme is exemplified by Volkswagen and the diesel-gate mess they are involved in. VW was ruled with an iron fist by Ferdinand Piëch. His management style was to dictate what the results would be and expected employees to make it happen. If they didn’t make it happen, they were fired. This culture at least partially led to VW cheating on emissions software and the enormous mess they find themselves in.
Bob Lutz, a Swiss-American car executive, and one of the best managers in the auto industry in my view, put it this way recently in Road & Track magazine:
“To me, most large corporations today are led too softly, with too much industrial democracy and too much worrying about employee contentment. Work is not supposed to be a relaxing, rewarding social activity. It’s supposed to deliver results. Weak, kind leaders usually don’t get it done, or get it done too slowly. Tough, demanding leaders take the team to repeated wins, just like in sports. In politics, dictators can and do drive the most change, but we’ve seen how that can go wrong. And this it was the case with the Piëch style: fabulous growth, superb products, great profits, but the totalitarian style broaches no dissent, voices from the troops or bad news. That’s the fatal flaw.”
So what do we learn from this? I tend to like the strong leader style. I do believe in getting input from the troops, particularly those with direct customer contact. But then I think the CEO should make a decision, sell their vision to their subordinates and lead. Then don’t coddle the troops; hold them accountable. Achievement is satisfying to most people and will lead to an engaged workforce. Those looking for free beer and snacks won’t last long. Buh-bye!
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