Do You Value Your Employees?
By Bob Mason
The American Psychological Association has released the 2014 Work and Well - Being Survey and it has some interesting findings.
- Only about 25 percent of those surveyed reported they were not engaged in the workplace. That's significantly lower than last year's Gallup survey and in my experience, more accurate. Of course the results will depend on who and how you ask the question. Significant, but not surprising, is that workers who feel valued at work are more likely to be engaged.
- According to 51% of the survey respondents, the number one source of work stress is low salaries. I'm not sure what to make of this. At first glance it might appear that insufficient compensation was leading to disengagement, or at least lack of engagement, but those numbers don't seem to correlate. A close second for work stress is lack of opportunity for growth or advancement. It is significant that the survey question asked respondents to select from a list rather than asking them to simply state their primary work stressors.
What makes all this a little difficult to interpret is that in another part of the survey, 50% of the Millennial participants reported that they received adequate compensation. 47% answered that they felt employers provided sufficient opportunities for internal career advancement and 57% were satisfied with the growth and development opportunities offered by their employer. My interpretation is that respondents provided answers based on what they felt would be stressors at work, but that not all respondents felt that stress themselves.
That may answer what appears to be a contradiction, but regardless, there is one constant theme in this survey that is very important for leaders. In all categories, the one factor that made the most significant difference between high and low responses was how much the respondent felt they were valued by their employers. Those who felt they were more highly valued had higher engagement and lower stress scores throughout the survey.
There is another, very significant aspect to the APA survey that relates to worker engagement and which leaders need to understand.
Trust.
In answer to the statement, "My employer is not always honest and truthful," 32% agreed, while 24% said they "Don't trust their employer."
It is impossible to have real engagement if your people don't trust you.
All this isn't rocket science. It is the basic tenets of good leadership. The APA survey reinforces what every leader should know - employees who feel they are a valuable part of the team will be more productive and have fewer problems.
What's important to you?
Take the survey.
I spend a lot of time speaking and writing about leadership development and I want to provide valuable content that's relevant to your needs. That means I also need to listen so I've created two surveys to help me learn about your issues.
If you're a business owner, CEO, or in another position where you supervise other supervisors and managers, please take a few minutes for the survey here.
If you are a supervisor or manager please take a few minutes for the survey here".
Please complete one or both surveys. You're busy and your time is valuable so the surveys are short and to the point.
I will publish the results in a report which I'll send to anyone who participated. Instructions to receive the report are included in the survey instructions.
Please share these surveys with others.
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I Learned About Leadership From That!
None of us are truly born with the ability to lead. Some may have more of the qualities that make great leaders, but most often great leadership develops from watching and learning from others. Here is a leadership lesson that I learned.
INFORMAL LEADERSHIP
Early in my military career I worked for a captain who was a real fireball, what is sometimes called a hard-charger. Captain Chandler was always going at full speed and expected nothing less than excellence from those of us in her department.
That doesn't mean she was a tyrant. In fact she had a well deserved reputation for fairness and dedication to her troops. We always knew that she would listen to and carefully consider our input. She would not tolerate laziness or poor performance, yet understood that mistakes happen.
Of course, when mistakes did happen she wanted to know why and what we were doing to correct the problem. Excuses were unacceptable and would quickly lead to the poor offender being on the receiving end of what seemed like a fire-breathing dragon. The fire might singe a little around the edges, but it never seriously burned.
Our department was responsible for training. Training takes time and so we were not always everyone else's favorites. One of the reasons she elicited so much loyalty is that the really hot fire was reserved for those outside our department who would dare to criticize us for doing our job. Yes, that happened sometimes.
I have tried to model my own leadership around the example set by Captain Chandler. I firmly believe that we would have followed her to the gates of hell, if for no other reason than to see her put the devil in his place and order air conditioning installed by the end of the week.
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