I came across an article in the Yahoo Finance Section that posed the question ‘Do you work for one of America’s Happiest Companies.’ I found this article interesting because it discussed the correlation between employee performance and happiness ‘in terms of productivity, sales, energy levels, turnover rates and health care costs’(1). In today’s volatile economy where people are being laid off, forced to sell most of their assets in order to survive – the economic downturn poses great challenges for people who are struggling to find jobs. ‘Do you work for one of America’s Happiest Companies,’ is interesting in that it boldly lays claim to ‘America’s Happiest companies’ but fails to explain the underlying reasons why.
According to Stacy Sullivan, chief culture officer of Google
‘If you infuse fun into the work environment, you will have more engaged employees, greater job satisfaction, increased productivity and a brighter place to be’ (1)
Although this may be true for many, is it true for everyone? Here at Talent Analytics Corp we conducted a “small poll” within our firm that posed the question ‘How would the “fun” programs implemented by Google and others work for people here?’ Results were interesting in that most of our firm described two reactions: the first being that they would spend most of their time calculating how much was being spent on these initiatives, that could go into bottom line. The second being that they would feel like time was being wasted on “fun” initiatives.
Our team responses could be chalked up to thinking people at our firm aren’t any fun – or that people are motivated by different things, but the reality of the situation is that by using Talent Analytics to look within our own firm – we were able to closely predict responses. Our team, comprised mostly of people responsible for sales are not the creative sorts. They are efficient and mostly energized by bottom line results. Thus my concern; If companies blindly follow other leading companies without using talent analytics to measure what makes their employees ‘happy’ and productive, they may find the opposite effect happening.
Talent analytics is more than just data, it tells the story about what motivates people to succeed, what drives and empowers them. Sometimes fun just isn’t motivating.
Read the Yahoo Article Here.
