3 Signs of a Miserable Job.

As with beauty, the definition of a bad job lies with the beholder. Some people consider a job bad because it is physically demanding or exhausting, involving long hours or little pay. It really depends on who you are what you value and enjoy.

Everyone knows what a miserable job is; it’s the one you dread going to and cant wait to leave. The one that saps your energy even when you’re not busy. It’s the one that makes you go home at the end of the day with less enthusiasm and more cynicism than you had when you left in the morning.

The Cost of Misery.

More people out there are miserable in their jobs than fulfilled by them. And the cost of this, in both economic and human terms is staggering. Economically, productivity suffers greatly when employees are unfulfilled. The effects on a company’s bottom line or a nation's economy are undeniable. But it’s the social cost of misery at work that seems particularly overwhelming, because it has such a broad ripple effect.

In his book "The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (and Their Employees) Patrick Lencioni describes the three signs as;

1. Anonymity: people cannot be fulfilled in their work if they are not known. All human beings need to be understood and appreciated for their unique qualities by someone in a position of authority. People who see themselves as invisible, generic or anonymous cannot love their jobs, no matter what they are doing.

2. Irrelevance: everyone need to know that their job matters, to someone. Anyone. Without seeing a connection between the work and the satisfaction of another person or group of people, an employee simple will not find lasting fulfilment. Even the most cynical employees need to know that their work matters to someone, even if it’s just the boss.

3. Imeasurement: employees need to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution for themselves. They cannot be fulfilled in their work if their success depends on the opinions or whims of another person, no matter how benevolent that person may be. Without a tangible means for assessing success or failure, motivation eventually deteriorates as people see themselves as unable to control their own fate.

Simple? Absolutely.

Obvious? Perhaps.

But if so then why do so many managers fail to provide their people with these basics of a meaningful job? Maybe its because it is too obvious.Well-educated people often have a hard time getting their heads around simple solutions. Or perhaps the 18^th century author Samuel Johnson is right, and they just need to be reminded a lot.

Taking action.

If you’re a manager take a simple and honest self-assessment.

Ask yourself the following in alignment with the three signs as stated above,

• Anonymity: Do I really know my people? Their interests? How they spend their spare time? Where they are in their lives?
• Irrelevance: Do they know who their work impacts? And how?
• Imeasurement: Do they know how to assess their own progress or success?

If you are an employee it’s about taking the time and having the courage to have the right conversations. Talk to your boss (or prospective boss) about the three signs of a miserable job and your desire to avoid them. Most people really do want to be good managers, and if they know that they make positive changes at relatively low cost, they'll often be willing to do so. The first step is simply having the courage to have this conversation, once the communication channels are open the benefits are undeniable.

Downward Dog with your Boss? Compromising Positions on Corporate Wellness.

Getting the right work, life and relaxation balance is becoming a larger responsibility for companies today than it was in the past.

As employees tackle longer work hours their health and wellbeing slowly declines. Companies which introduce a wellness program, experience a positive, happy, productive and more reliable work atmosphere reflecting in higher productivity.

The US are essentially years ahead in terms of corporate wellness, particularly because of their health insurance scheme. The benefits of having health and wellness intricately linked with employment are undeniable. It requires the employer to take responsibility for their employees on a personal level and also encourage them to take further responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.

Friday night drinks may have kept staff happy, relaxed and content in the past, yet with workplace culture changing, employees are no longer after another round at the bar. Employees are leaning more towards another training session for the upcoming City to Surf or sharing a downward dog at a lunch-time yoga session with their boss.

“While staff may be the biggest expense on the budget sheet, they are also the biggest asset. We do everything possible to maintain and increase the value of our assets - staff is no different. To maintain their work value we need to ensure that they do not become sick, unmotivated and negative in the workplace or they will certainly become a liability.” Says CEO of Corporate Wellness Australia, Wayne Dart.

Today in the workplace, it is not uncommon to see a massage therapist walking around the office offering neck and shoulder massages, or perhaps meeting rooms being converted into yoga classes at lunchtime. As employees spend longer hours at work, employers are discovering that by incorporating a workplace wellness program, staff satisfaction increases, absenteeism levels decrease resulting in an increase in employees’ productivity and improving morale.

So lets get back to basics… why implement a corporate health and wellness program for your staff? Let’s have a look at some of recent stats:

. 10% of Australian workers are sedentary

. 40% do minimal exercise

. 12% exercise less than one hour per week

. 46% have high-fat diets

. 92% eat less than the recommended servings of 5-9 serves of fruit & vegetables

. 21% smoke daily

. 53% feel overwhelmed with pressure and stress “a significant amount of the time”

When you see these results, you have to ask yourself, how much is this costing our company’s bottom line?

It’s obvious when people are healthy and happy in and amongst their surrounds and are happy with themselves they are far more productive and conducive to greater company growth.

Also in the back of cutting edge CEO’s minds, is a recent article in Australian Magazine, BRW, which stated that “pay is no longer the most important factor when attracting or retaining high performing staff.” (Statistics were compiled by the Australian Institute of Management) The article goes on to state “… employers need to consider a whole range of “engagement factors”, such as job satisfaction, good relationships with co-workers, new and interesting challenges, feeling valued and work life balance…” In fact pay ranked 10^th on the list!

Once upon a time, a company would demand its pound of flesh for monetary return, but in this day and age, with people working longer hours and being under high levels of stress, employers must ensure that the work life doesn’t take away too much from the things that are important to individuals.

It’s for this reason that so many progressive companies are giving back to their staff by implementing a corporate health strategy. By implementing ongoing corporate health programs, the employer is showing the staff that they care about the team’s wellbeing beyond the working hours. They build team/family spirit and “extra curricula” communication through people bonding while taking on personal challenges extending beyond the computer keyboard in front of them. And by educating your team, through corporate health seminars and by implementing health strategies with SMART goals and outcomes built into job descriptions, you can expect to see far more lively and enthusiastic workers.

Corporate Wellness Australia has a great blog and website, with great tips and programs that will inspire your workplace with practical ways to implement a wellness program. http://www.corporatewellness.com.au/blog/

Follow the lead…How does your organisation measure business success?

Are endless hours spent analysing historic factors such as profitability, absenteeism, staff turnover and market share? While these are important factors, through which companies can “review the past, monitor the present and plan for the future”, they are essentially “lag performance indicators”.

Research by Gallup demonstrates that organisations with high levels of engagement routinely outperform their competitors; they are 27% more profitable, they have 38% above average productivity and have 50% higher customer loyalty.

If this is the case, then wouldn’t company time be better spent focusing on developing employee engagement and measuring ‘lead indicators’ as well? “If employees are engaged and enjoying their work, the traditional ‘lag’ indicators are much more likely to improve as a result.”

It’s as simple as shifting the focus of a company’s key performance indicators from purely financial to a more holistic approach where by lead indicators such as employee engagement and client satisfaction are used to measure performance.

Employee engagement is widely agreed by business leaders and HR practitioners as one of the major drivers of business performance in fact most organisations now have it as a critical component of their strategic agenda. With challenging economic conditions, a hot recruitment market and skills shortages, the more engaged employees are the more productive they are and less likely to leave. Any business can benefit from understanding their engagement capability to identify the ripest areas for improvement and quickest route to enhancing engagement reality in a proactive manner, no matter whether they currently measure engagement or not.

By placing importance on key performance indicators that have a focus on the people who are directly involved with the business; employees and clients, rather than just numbers and figures on a spread sheet, a company becomes more balanced and allows employees to feel that they are an integral individuals working towards a united goal with the company. This balance reflects an approach that is centred on “the journey rather the destination”.

It makes sense that one of the outputs of a more engaged workforce will be increased levels of customer satisfaction which will, in turn, lead to an improvement in business results.

Five Ways to Wellbeing

Based on the latest scientific evidence, nef has created a set of five simple actions which can improve well-being in everyday life.



Read more at http://www.neweconomics.org/projects/five-ways-well-being

The Cultural Web: What makes your workplace tick?

The recent dismissal of Mark Papermaker from Apple has put a spotlight on corporate culture. The wrong cultural fit is one of the worst reasons that can be cited for a corporate departure. Being called out for weak performance during a recession is less painful, and at least you are in good company. But being let go due to 'cultural fit' issues is more akin to not having your golf club membership renewed. It's personal. For a technology geek, it is even worse when you are dissed by Apple — the ultimate culture for the creative genius, whose temperament is gladly tolerated for a runaway hit like the IPad.

The high profile departure has led to a social media frenzy of armchair organizational men trying to characterize the right personality fit for Apple's corporate culture. Therein lies the problem. Defining corporate cultures is a difficult task. It is one that Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes have successfully tackled through their cultural web model. According to their work culture paradigm, six interrelated elements create a corporate culture.

Stories - A company's oral history can have a greater impact on workplace dynamics and performance than written rules and procedures. What do internal and external stakeholders say about your company? Do their perceptions and stories reflect the values and mission of your company?

Rituals and Routines - Routines can act as positive or negative reinforcements. What messages do your routines send to employees? If you break a routine do you breach a psychological contract?

Symbols - Symbols go beyond logos and branding. Negative messaging, especially in today's viral social media networks, can become institutionalized. Procter & Gamble eventually redesigned its logo after decades of allusions to three sixes and Satan.

Organizational Structure - Employee performance and motivation can differ dramatically between a hierarchical and flat organizational structure. Who yields power and how it is exercised can be key determinants of cultural fit. As bloggers have noted this week, Apple has a stronger ego factor at the top than most workplaces.

Control Systems - Pay for performance is playing a greater role in companies. The structure of rewards and incentives can serve as powerful motivators of employees and influencers on corporate culture.

Power Structures - How power is structured has a significant impact on corporate culture and reputation. In today's engaged and empowered workplace, we hear of fewer power mongers and screamers at the top of public companies because more culturally savvy shareholders know that these volatile personalities create a negative corporate culture.

Once you have defined your corporate culture, you are ready to define the employee profile that is the right cultural fit for the unique dynamics of your workplace.

Developing Employee Expectations

Typically, there are two levels of employee expectations in an organisation. The first level is set out in the employee contract, rules, procedures and job descriptions. The second level of employee expectations is less concrete. These are the implicit expectations that are part of the psychological contract between employer and employee. Examples are loyalty, respect and job security. It is these often unspoken expectations that when breached can cause an employee to be demotivated and, even worse, go work for the competitor.

Unpspoken employee expectations can cause havoc in organizations because they create fuzzy expectations. In his The Coach Is In column in the Washington Post, Marshall Brown aptly refers to this practice as managing by "mental telepathy." The result, says Brown, is "hesitation, indecision and uncertainty," which ultimately negatively impacts productivity and performance.
Brown provides some good pointers on how to set clear expectations. Notably, expectation setting is a two-way communication process between employer and employee, notes Brown—when developing the vision, deciding on how to get there and giving feedback. Equally important is for an employee to be able to make and see progress. This requires setting benchmarks and performance measurements.

There is a darker side to employees under performing due to a lack of clear expectations, and that is employees working over capacity to fulfill undefined expectations. A disconcerting trend mentioned in previous blogs is Americans who are not taking refreshing and productivity enhancing vacations. Now the Randstad reports that 40 percent of UK workers believe that their workloads do not allow them to take a break. Sixty seven percent of these workers report increasing workloads.

High Returns for Investing in People

Rationalisation is becoming business as usual for many organisations. There is one expense that is increasing for the world's most productive companies — training and development. Investing in people seems even braver when the forecasts for employee turnover are considered. Survey after survey is reporting that up to one third of employees — reporting low grades in trust and communication in the workplace — plan to look for another job when the economy picks up.

Before slashing the training and development budget, consider the productivity advantage of investing in employees. The world's best companies for leaders also are some of the most productive and sustainable businesses of the last century — GE, Procter & Gamble, IBM, 3M, and Nestle — and fastest growing — Infosys, Cisco, according to the Bloomberg BusinessWeek/Haye Group's 2010 Best Companies for Leadership. What do they have in common? They all invest in training and development in good times and bad.

In more challenging economic times, the temptation to curtail the training budget is all too tempting. The evidence, however, clearly makes the case for increasing investment in people. All tallied, the return on investing in people pays off. Some of the gains are harder to quantify but the benefits of investing in training and development are apparent:

· More knowledgeable employees to share new knowledge and techniques with other employees
· More qualified leaders to train and mentor the next generation of leaders
· More competent employees liaising with customers, partners and suppliers
· More confident employees: An employee's perception of self-efficacy, which is strongly influenced by training and development, is positively correlated with performance

There's more evidence. Companies that invest more resources in training and development enjoy higher retention rates. As a restless and demotivated workforce dusts off its resumes and prepares to job hunt as the economy rebounds, there is no better time to make a strong commitment to the personal development of your workforce.