Archive for Tony Hsieh

The Top 4 Employee Needs to Fulfill for Greater Happiness and Productivity

Business Leader Inspiring Employees

If you’ve been following this blog and other science of happiness research, you already know achieving employee satisfaction is key to creating a sustainable and productive workforce.

It’s simple, really. More satisfied employees = happier employees = more engaged employees = more productive employees = a mutually beneficial equation for everyone.

A 2012 Gallup meta-analysis of 263 research studies conducted across nearly 200 companies revealed that highly engaged employees translates into significantly more dollar signs—22 percent more, roughly. The Q12® report, titled “Relationship Between Engagement at Work and Organizational Outcomes,” found a 0.42 correlation between engagement and performance. Organizations whose employees ranked in the top half for employee engagement were almost twice as successful, and those in the 99th percentile showed quadruple the success rate over those scoring in the 1st percentile.

So how do you cultivate that employee engagement? Tony Schwartz and Christine Porath explore this question in “The Power of Meeting Your Employees’ Needs” at the HBR Blog.

According to the article, a 2013 Harvard Business Review survey of 19,000 people suggests meeting the following four needs is the secret:

Delivering Happiness Frameworks1) Renewal (physical). Employees are encouraged to take breaks to stretch, exercise, get fresh air or even power-nap. They return feeling rejuvenated and energized, ready to barrel through the next big task.

2) Value (emotional). When staff members feel valued by their coworkers and especially their supervisors, they are more motivated. We explore this formula extensively in our blog posts on The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People (Part 1 and Part 2).

3) Focus (mental). Employees who are bombarded with distractions, competing deadlines and inane meetings lose focus and clarity about their priorities. Organizations that give workers greater control over their own schedules so they can carve out focus time for intensive projects will see a corresponding rise in productivity.

4) Purpose (spiritual). Feeling part of something larger and more important than one’s self is crucial to employee happiness. Tony Hsiesh testifies to the significance of this factor to Zappos’ success in his book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Passion, Profits, and Purpose (see the Happiness Frameworks sidebar, graphics courtesy of the Delivering Happiness website).

The more needs met, the more exponentially engaged employees will be. Satisfy one need, and employees will be 30 percent more focused, 50 percent more engaged, and 63 percent more likely to stay with the company. Satisfying all four results in employees who are 125 percent more engaged than those whose needs are not being met.

The following graph (courtesy of HBR.org) illustrates the remarkable correlation between satisfaction of these four variables and performance.

Effects of Meeting Employees Needs Graph

Daniel Pink’s research backs up these findings. According to Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, people need these three things to feel motivated: 1) autonomy, 2) sense of purpose and 2) ability to master their endeavor.

Pink discovered that employee drive goes far deeper than dollars. Offering rewards like monetary bonuses actually decreases motivation in the long run because it depletes the intrinsic motivation derived from the work itself. The carrot wears out quickly, and it becomes the goal of the work rather than the actual process. Businesses would do better to ensure the work itself is gratifying.

Organizations that invest in cultivating employee happiness and engagement by meeting their primary needs wind up healthier, happier and ultimately richer.

Chris Cook can help your company get started on that path. Contact her at 541.601.0114 or chris@capiche.us to chart a course toward your brighter future.

What Do You Expect from Your Job?

Our Values and Culture, Wegmans

Really? Is this a valid question?

The business world is changing along with our expectations. More than ever, we are looking to work for an organization with vision and values that align with our own. We are seeking a sense of purpose in what we do and how we do it.

Think about your own work. What really matters to you? Why do you do what you do?

I think it all boils down to happiness and a sense of wellbeing. Start with a question like, “Why do you do what you do?” You may get the answer, “Because I like to help people [fill in the blank].” Then ask, “Why do you like to help people [fill in the blank]?” And keep asking, keep drilling down. I bet you will finally get to an answer that sounds something like, “Because it makes me happy.” Yep. People do what they do in pursuit of happiness.

But what makes people happy? What feeds a state of wellbeing?

In his book Flourish, positive psychology’s grandfather Marty Seligman states that it’s the combination of positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement. Sounds reasonable.

But wait. It’s health, wealth, relationships, happiness and meaning, according to bestselling author and executive coach Marshall Goldsmith. Yeah, that sounds reasonable, too.

And Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh says it’s a combination of perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness and having a sense of vision and meaning in one’s work—being a part of something bigger than oneself. I can get on board with that as well.

The good news is that in the last several years, we’ve seen more and more examples of businesses of all shapes and sizes taking employee wellbeing and happiness into account—even putting it front and center. And they’re not all progressive tech giants like Google, Apple or Facebook. Happy companies are everywhere and every size.

Just look at Fortune’s Top Companies to Work For 2013. I’ll admit I’m proud to say little old Wegmans Food Markets is at position number five. I say I’m proud because Wegman’s was started in Rochester, NY, where I hail from. And while it’s not a Mom and Pop store anymore, it maintains that quality while offering an astounding shopping experience. For me, one of the best parts about visiting “home” is getting to grocery shop at “Weggies.”

What’s so great about Weggies? According to Fortune, “Turnover is an exceptionally low 3.6% at the Northeastern grocery chain, which lets employees reward one another with gift cards for good service. Many workers like it there so much they bring in relatives—one in five employees are related.” And the story goes that when Cher was in town for a concert, part of her VIP treatment included an exclusive visit to Wegman’s.

What about your work makes you happy? What helps you flourish? What inspires your creativity and fuels your desire to give a little more? Please let us know—reply to this blog! We will all benefit.

How to Live the Brand—and Play to Your Strengths

Walking on the Beach

Say your company just invested a hefty amount of time and resources in a process to clarify its brand and claim its position in the market. Now that you’ve codified your brand, including your signature strengths, how do you help employees embody those principles on a daily basis? What are you doing to develop and promote your organization’s and your employees’ strengths?

Living the Brand

Walking the TalkIt’s not as hard as it sounds. Here are four ways your company can help people walk the talk.

1) The Interview. It all starts here. Zappos employees don’t need to be told how to live the brand—they do it naturally. As CEO Tony Hsieh explains in Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, the company’s core values drive the interview process, and Zappos hires individuals who are inherently passionate about those values.

2) Conversations. Create a culture that encourages employees to discuss the company’s values. When your mission guides strategic decisions, when employees measure their actions against the company’s brand and when everyday conversations organically reflect the organizational values, you know your employees both understand and practice those values.

3) Peer-to-Peer Training. Let staff—not managers—take the lead when it comes to values training. When new and current employees learn about the company’s core principles from their peers, this dynamic gives the trainees a living example to follow while the trainers deepen their own awareness of the company’s values.

Walking the Talk4) Business Tools. The mission, vision, and values shouldn’t be an awkward uniform your employees don when they enter the building and drop in the foyer on their way out. In Delivering Happiness, employees talk about how Zappos’ first Core  Value—Deliver WOW Through Service—has affected the way they live their entire lives. They consistently make the extra effort to create moments of wow, whether it be on the phone helping a customer or relating to a fellow shopper at the grocery store.

Nurturing Individual Strengths

Two years ago when I launched Capiche, I wanted to create a company that was committed not only to educating but also transforming organizations. Armed with science of happiness research, best business practices, and positive psychology principles, I set out to help companies “understand and develop the capital within.”

Too many organizations treat their employees as if they’re expendable, interchangeable parts. If employees disengage, management issues pink slips and orders a fresh batch of replacements. When the reinforcements wear out, the cycle repeats. Rarely do such companies stop to examine why they are failing to engage their employees.

In a recent Gallup poll conducted at 14 different companies, the 105,000 employees surveyed only mildly agreed—3.87 on a scale of strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5)—that their company was nurturing their strengths.

If you want to help employees connect with your company’s brand and signature strengths, you need to identify and nurture their strengths.

Clifton StrengthsFinder is a fantastic tool for this discovery process. It can be an illuminating and fun experience for the employees and will help you see how each person’s strengths can best benefit the company.

Know Your Coworkers

Once you’ve discovered your employees’ talents, the next step is ensuring peers understand and rely on each other’s strengths.

This happens less often than you might realize. When Gallup asked 8,900 employees how strongly they agreed with the statement that they could name the strengths of five coworkers, the mean score was only 3.78 out of a possible 5.

Effective collaboration requires that team members know their coworkers’ strengths. A smaller group of employees chosen based on complimentary strengths can achieve far more than a large, haphazardly composed team. When tasks are divvied up according to individual talents, you’ll see that efficiency, passion and productivity skyrocket.

Coming Full Circle

So yes, brand is important, and clarifying your company’s core values, mission, and vision is a critical step toward building a successful brand, but all of those pretty words mean nothing if your employees don’t resonate with them and incorporate them into their day-to-day routines.

Similarly, identifying your company’s unique strengths should be followed up with an effective strategy for understanding and developing strengths within your employees. When you harness the talents of individuals for the expression of your company’s signature strengths, together you will become a formidable creative force.

Helping organizations harness this creative force is Capiche’s passion. Call Chris at 541.601.0114 or email chris@capiche.us if you’re ready to put this force to work for your organization.