By Mike DuBose
In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins and his team found that great organizations often contained happy employees who care about each other. Many of the employees in these companies had established close relationships with their peers, often socialized during and after work with each other, and worked closely as a team with their colleagues.
In 2007, I began the journey to build a great, profitable, and fun company. Being profitable turned out to be the easiest part. Taking a good company to greatness where fun was part of the formula was difficult, especially as the company was reeling from employee layoffs, the effects of a sluggish bureaucracy, and a trust level between leadership and employees that was at an all-time low. I felt like I was the captain of one huge oil tanker who determined that we needed to make a radical change of course. It would be difficult, but necessary to avoid disaster.
I set out to prove my hypothesis that happy employees work harder, smarter, more effectively, and more efficiently than unhappy employees. Of course, this was not rocket science, but I theorized that in order to build a great company, our organizations needed to be filled with happy employees who wanted to stay with the company for the long haul. As Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, authors of the bestselling “Carrot” books, note: “The bottom line is that employees can build or pull down your market share. Engaged and satisfied employees trust your mission. They trust the services they are giving. They are ambassadors and advocates for your company. They produce results and can usually be trusted to create positive experiences for your customers.”
But how does a leader create a company where fun, profit, high quality standards, and exceeding customers’ expectations come together to form a company where employees look forward to coming to work and making things happen? While researching for her book Happy for No Reason, Marci Shimoff determined “you can’t just decide to be happy, any more than you can decide to be fit or to be a great piano virtuoso and expect instant mastery. You can, however, decide to take the necessary steps” to become happy. Leaders and employees can’t just decide to be happy with their jobs—they must put forth the effort to create a happy, productive work environment that leads to satisfied employees.
I had to dig deeper into the idea of happiness to determine how to build a company of fun. One of my findings was that you cannot simply pay your way into happiness with benefits like higher salaries, great fringe benefits, and liberal leave. When we assessed employees in 2007, 75% of those who responded said that they did not plan to be with the company in five years! While good salaries and fringe benefits help in promoting happiness, they don’t rank amongst the top items employees are seeking as motivation to stay with the company. In fact, Collins and his research team found “no systematic pattern linking executive compensation to the process of going from good to great.”
So how do you build a great company with employees who are happy to work there? We are not perfect, but are some tips that we’ve found work very well:
* Select the Right Employees: Your staff selection process is critical. The more work you do up front, the better your chance of creating a base of happy, outstanding employees. Too many companies throw their nets out there and when an outstanding candidate does not surface immediately, they accept the best applicant from those who did apply. As outlined in our chapter on employee hiring, you should not accept less-than-outstanding employees. Screen the daylights out of your applicant pool and if you can’t find the right person, go out again and re-advertise the position until you do! Your selection process should be tough and thoroughly examine all aspects of applicants’ backgrounds, including psychological, medical, credit, writing, technology, background, and multiple interview screenings. While I cannot provide any scientific studies to back this up, I have found that employees who excelled in high school or college with high grade point averages and leadership involvement tend to be better adjusted, happier employees who perform at higher levels. Collins stresses the importance of “getting the right people on the bus” in taking a company from “good to great.”
* Fit Employees into the Right Jobs: Once you’ve found the right person to join your company, look for positions within the organization where that employee will fit the best. If they don’t fit well, try other positions that that might suit them better. Individuals who are unhappy in their jobs will not contribute to your organization’s efficiency, effectiveness, and overall employee satisfaction.
* Help the Wrong Employees Find Other Jobs Outside the Company: When you make a hiring mistake, move quickly to terminate the employee (with care) and help them find another job. Unhappy employees can create toxic environments, and the old adage “one rotten apple can ruin the bunch” applies! Once they are terminated, make sure that employees leave immediately.
* Send a Clear, Positive Signal: Leaders need to send strong signals that negativity, whining, gossip, and hateful behavior are not welcome in the organization. You want to illuminate the positivity beacon in the organization and reward employees who demonstrate positive, can-do, problem-solving, and fun behaviors. Coach employees who are negative to change their behaviors and consider termination if they fail to make changes. They can drag down the entire organization by exhibiting negative behavior and constantly viewing the glass as half-empty.
* Develop an Employee Liaison Committee: Create a committee with representation from different divisions to plan fun things paid for by the company, like:
* Meeting to celebrate birthdays at lunch
* Having socials
* Bringing everyone together for a wine tasting and hors d’oeuvres (including non-alcoholic beverages)
* Periodically taking everyone out for a meal
* Having an annual party for all employees, relations, and friends with a band and lots of food and drink
Though employees enjoy receiving verbal rewards for their good work, it’s nice to occasionally express your appreciation through events like parties. Gostick and Chester say that “celebrations give you a hundred opportunities to thank everyone and communicate, ‘We’re in this together.’”
* Develop Fun Games: During some of our meetings, we play a game called “Secret.” We organize those who want to play into different groups each time so they can learn about each other. Our senior team leader for finance comes up with an answer to riddle and then distributes clues one at a time. The object of the game is for a group to successfully guess the answer. The first two successful groups win cash, which they split amongst the team members. It has been so much fun for me to watch staff having fun, banding together, and (hopefully) winning cash!
* Share the Profits: If your organization does well and makes a good profit, consider sharing the profits with employees. Instead of a structured system, give out profits at unexpected times to add smiles to your employees’ faces. Don’t give out all of the profits that you have decided to share at one time; rather, spread them out over time so there are unexpected lumps of cash coming to your team at different times of the year.
* Create a Balanced Work Environment: Be sure that workloads are balanced amongst employees and that staff members are not overwhelmed. Don’t kill your employees with too much work and long hours. Your expectations should focus on quality, not excessive quantity.
* Do Wild Stuff to Show You Appreciate Your Employees: In 2005, we took our entire company to Hawaii with their airline, hotel, and convertible car rentals paid for! We all had a ball and many of our staff bonded closely. However, if you do this, ensure that the group assembles together as one several times during the fun to promote togetherness.
* Avoid Hierarchies and Develop an Execution Environment: Abolish unneeded rules and bureaucracy that frustrate employees. Having a bunch of rules takes away from fun! Focus on getting things done within your organization by emphasizing prompt decision-making and project completion. Instead of forcing them to communicate through the levels of a bureaucracy, I encourage employees to bring questions and ideas directly to me. I listen to staff members’ concerns (like their desire to recycle at our offices) and act on them, showing employees that I value their opinions and input into how our companies work. I also speak honestly to them about things going on in my life.
* Allow Employees to Blossom: Give employees as much control over their jobs as possible, including power to help run the company through involvement in committees. We recently created a community service committee that allows employees to volunteer at approved charities during work hours (if their work is done and their absence is approved by a supervisor). As Arthur C. Brooks notes in Gross National Happiness, “People who give charitably are happier than people who don’t.” Our employees recently held a canned food drive with our commercial neighbors in our office park to benefit a local food bank and were overwhelmed at how much people gave, how much fun and teamwork the experience generated, and how much happier it made them to be able to help others. Volunteering also reaffirms our companies’ commitment and purpose of improving the lives of people in our community. Staff members like to be part of a bigger picture and to feel like their ideas matter. Let them spread their wings and fly!
* Create Liberal Fringe Benefits, Salaries, and Leave: Employees need to be cared for with good salaries, excellent fringe benefits, and substantial leave. In 2008, as many companies cut benefits to improve their bottom lines, we chose to maintain ours. Happy employees need enough money to pay their bills with some left for savings and fun, strong benefits that pay for most of their medical expenses (or address major medical problems), and good leave to ensure they have time for their personal lives and to spend time with their families. When I meet with leaders from other organizations and tell them about our liberal benefits, they gasp or almost fall out of their chairs!
* Management Should Loosen Up! While it is important to have some basic rules and structures and hold each other accountable, fun begins with the leader and radiates out. We play jokes on each other, laugh when possible, and enjoy each other’s company.
* Make an Effort to Understand Each Other: One of the best three-day trainings I have taken was with Don Jenkins of the Leadership Academy. All of our employees took online psychological and performance profiles as part of the training, and the results were explained through colors indicating different leadership styles and personality types. The process was a lot of fun and helped everyone realize that we are all different, we react differently to situations, and we process information differently. Staff quit expecting others to think like they did and learned that different people like to be approached differently. We all began to understand each other better and to respect others’ needs as illustrated through their profiles.
* Encourage Professional Development: In August 2008, I tied some of our profit sharing to professional development as I tried to build a new, happier environment. I read Shimoff’s excellent book, which carefully examines the concept of happiness from many different perspectives, including those of different religions and researchers. I realized that her book would be beneficial in helping our employees carefully examine their happiness and will hopefully encourage them to take it up a notch as they read it through our reading program, which will be called “Live and Learn.” So I threw the carrot out there, inviting employees to participate in reading the book and offering cash as an incentive to make each professional development book they read fun and rewarding. After reading the book, employees will meet at least twice in small groups whose composition will be pre-arranged. The group will have two one-hour meetings to talk about the important points of the book and how these points might change their lives. Then, the employees will write at least one page on what they plan to change to improve their personal happiness. This write-up will be kept confidential by the employee, who will also have to sign a statement saying they read the book, met as a group, and completed their write-up in order to receive the money.
* Improve Job Security: Shimoff says that fear, which causes energy to “contract,” can be one of the greatest barriers to happiness. This idea was echoed in my communications with staff, who were afraid about losing their jobs after we were forced to lay off some employees in 2006. In 2008, we established that the company would set aside a large amount in savings to enhance job security, which makes staff feel more secure (and thus happy) in their jobs. We also maintain our budget like hawks to ensure there are no surprises like the one we experienced in 2006!
* Enact a Casual Dress Policy: I believe that a casual dress policy saves money on dry cleaning, energizes productivity, and creates an informal environment that generates fun. Apple and Microsoft have maintained this casual policy instead of having employees wear stuffy, formal business attire. Having the freedom to wear casual (but still professional-looking) clothing to work contributes to employees’ comfort and happiness with their work.
* Start a Wellness Program: Good health promotes happy employees. We encourage employees to voluntarily participate in programs that promote health and wellness, like teeth cleanings and yearly physicals. They are also rewarded for their participation in various physical activities ranging from weight lifting to aerobic dance classes.
* Maintain a Good Physical Office Environment: We created large offices for our employees with individual thermostats in most offices to allow them to control the temperature in their offices. We built systems into the office area that extract stale air and replace it with outside air to promote health, and use only environmentally safe poisons like boric acid to rid the office of pests and insects.
* Provide Employees with the Latest Technology: We provide staff with whatever they need to perform their jobs efficiently and effectively. This includes the latest computers and software so employees are not frustrated with outdated technology. We are even giving traveling employees GPS navigation systems through company-issued Blackberries so they don’t get lost when meeting with clients or making site visits!
* Be Thankful and Nice: We have tried to institute a philosophy of being nice in our companies. A couple of years ago, I wanted to consistently express my appreciation to employees for anything they did to help me and the companies. I began signing, “Thanks, Mike” to the end of most of my e-mails. Yes, this took some extra effort, but I noticed that a single thanks started to spread, with many others within our organization followed suit. Nice little things like expressing appreciation for each other add up to make the workplace (and employees) happier in the long run. For example, smiles are contagious—everyone should practice that more! And as Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson recommended in The One Minute Manager, “catch people doing something right,” say thanks, and recognize their good work.
* Respect Others’ Political, Religious, and Other Beliefs: Recently, our company took an anonymous survey to determine the political makeup of people in the organization. The responses showed that our office was split fairly evenly amongst conservatives, moderates, and liberals. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents were all represented in the survey responses. Our staff members also have a variety of different religious beliefs. In an environment like this, it is important to maintain neutrality on political, religious, and other sensitive issues to avoid making anyone uncomfortable or unhappy at work. Though we apply many Christian principles to our companies (like giving to charity and closing our conference center on Sundays so that people can worship and have a day of rest), we do not force religion on anyone; rather, we encourage everyone to treat one another with respect and kindness, which are not limited to a particular political group or religious denomination. Regardless of your religion, there is an excellent Bible verse that, if instituted more often in family situations, the workplace, and the world, would allow everything to work much more effectively and efficiently. Galatians 5:22-23 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no law.”
To create a great organization filled with happy employees takes everyone working together to make it happy. This takes time and is not easy, but it is definitely doable—and certainly worth doing. We’re not there yet, but we are headed in the right direction!
