Money: Happiness, Satisfaction and Engagement are Completely Different Things

DecisionWise Show Me The Money

Can Employee Engagement be bought?

An interesting question, and one that is sure to generate multiple opinions.  We repeatedly hear that money can’t buy happiness.  In his recent article Does Money Make You Happier?, Dr. Hal Hershfield examines the effects of money on happiness.  His article concludes that money affects overall well-being.  Therefore, Hershfield explains that richer countries don’t have “happier” citizens; they have citizens who are more satisfied with their lives.  We find the same relationship between happiness and satisfaction when looking at employee engagement survey results.

Satisfaction and Engagement

In a previous blog “Are Your Employees Engaged or Just Satisfied?,” we discussed how compensation initiates a transactional relationship based on satisfaction.  In the blog, Dr. Maylett, explains that employers provide compensation to employees who, in return, perform their job duties.  It’s a contractual, transactional relationship.  Competitive compensation is expected by employees.  Once pay rates fall below competitive levels, the contract is no longer being fulfilled, and employees become dissatisfied and either underperform or seek new employment—or both.
Download: Employee Satisfaction Survey

Happiness and Employee Engagement

So, what about happiness? We find that happiness is more closely related to employee engagement.  Obviously money matters (try telling your employees, “Oh, by the way, we won’t be paying you in April”), but not in the way that many people assume.  Too often HR and Management teams, anxious to boost employee survey scores or myriad other factors, focus on compensation components as a way to engage their employees.  Remember, satisfied employees aren’t always engaged or happy employees.  In fact, they may not even be productive employees.  So, let’s take a look at what contributes to happiness and engagement.

As humans, we long for social interaction and friendships (even the raging introverts like me).  By having friendships in the workplace, we experience higher levels of social connection—one of the five essential elements of employee engagement.  Knowing and getting along with the people we work with makes us excited to go to work, because we’ll be able to work with and be around those we have brought into our circle.  Friendships—or, at the very least, a sense of connection with coworkers—lead to employee engagement.

Another factor that contributes to happiness and engagement is feeling a sense of meaning.  If we find meaning in the activities we preform, we will become more engaged.  This rule is best illustrated by an anecdotal example:

In high school I had a job working at Papa Murphy’s Take ‘n’ Bake Pizza.  The job didn’t pay well, but I was still engaged.  The company espouses a zealous prioritization of exemplary customer service and complete customer satisfaction.  I noticed how the company made customer service a priority above all other things, which aligned with my personal values.  Since I believed customers anywhere should receive great service, I was happy to work for a company that shared that belief.  I found a sense of meaning in my job by contributing to the top priority of the company while fulfilling one of my personal values.

Notice how neither of the two elements above (connection and meaning) have anything to do with compensation!  Both elements are essential when trying to achieve—or augment—levels of employee engagement.  Yet, we often hear of a manager sitting down in the HR Manager’s office, saying, “We have to give her an increase or she’ll walk.” While this may be the case at times, we typically find that compensation is merely an easy-out for a more complex issue.  Money can only do so much.

Next time your organization rolls out an employee engagement survey, be careful when you examine the results.  Take it for what it is.   Questions that deal with levels of benefits and compensation are generally rated poorly by employee respondents.  It’s always been the case, and likely always will be.  None of us is paid what we (think we) are worth. Throwing more money at employees isn’t the first place to start when trying to improve employee engagement.  You may get satisfied employees, but satisfaction won’t translate into engagement or happiness.
Employee Engagement Survey Sample Download

How Meaning Influenced the Carnival Triumph Crew’s Customer Service

Trust is the Oxygen of the Employee Experience

Imagine you were a crew member assigned to Carnival’s Triumph during its recent disaster. As you may recall, last month the Carnival cruise ship Triumph was scheduled for a four-day cruise to Cozumel, Mexico. However, what promised to be a traveler’s dream quickly turned into a weeklong nightmare when an engine fire knocked out power for a week. How would you handle the stress of failing electricity, rotting food, and leaking sewage? Better yet, imagine you were a passenger on the Triumph during this crisis. How would you expect the crew members to handle the situation?

CNN and USA Today have both published articles praising the crew members’ diligence, dedication, and professionalism. Passenger Cheryl Espe remembered the crew, saying that “they worked so hard, such long hours, continuously, and always smiled . . . They deserve so much. They deserve a lot more.”

Remember, employee engagement refers to the passion and energy employees bring to their work—the discretionary effort they put forth as a result of the quality of the employee/employer relationship. With our understanding of engagement, we can quickly see that the Triumph’s crew was very engaged in their work. This observation is only strengthened by the words of Carnival crew member Sachin Sharma, who said delivering outstanding customer service is “very simple, because [crew members] are used to it. That’s why we make the best effort for [the customers]. . . . It’s a part of the job.”

Sharma clearly identifies the first element of engagement (Meaning) as the driver behind his actions to provide superior customer service, even during an extraordinary crisis.

Meaning, by definition, is the act of personally identifying—and thereby aligning oneself—with the underlying values and objectives of the organization, creating a mutuality of purpose that both the individual and the organization are willing to invest in each other to achieve. Sharma, and employees like him, have become engaged by cultivating robust levels of meaning. Contrast these actions with those of the skipper of the Costa Concordia who, after running his $563 million-dollar vessel aground last year in Italy, abandoned ship, claiming he “fell into a lifeboat.” Right.

We’ve all likely encountered the disengaged customer-service employee. Whether at the local market, or on the other end of a tech support call, disengagement is easy to spot and quick to frustrate. We’ve discussed in previous blogs how employee engagement directly influences customer satisfaction—a point that Carnival and its employees seem to have mastered. So, what’s different between Carnival employees and the customer-facing employees you and I encounter on a daily basis?

Perhaps the answer lies in Carnival’s promotion of its employment opportunities as “Fun.” Honestly, though, can it really be that simple? I don’t think so. Once we’re able to understand what factors contributed to the Triumph crew’s engagement, we’ll be able to echo the words of Kendall Jenkins when describing our encounters with customer-service employees. “The crew was always smiling. They need a huge raise,” she lauded.

Employee Engagement via Employee-Directed Giving

Corporate charitable giving is a common way for companies to give back to their communities and garner an even more favorable reputation from their followers.  (I’ll ignore the potential tax advantages for the purpose of this blog.)

Does charitable giving only have the ability to earn positive press for organizations?  Can charitable giving have any effect on a company’s employees?  University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics follow an interesting practice to involve employees in the giving season.  Early in the year, UWHC asks its Community Service Award nominees to serve on a committee to select one or more community organizations that would receive that year’s gift on behalf of staff.

“The entire committee took this task very seriously and dedicated significant thought to each decision,” says Thom Weiss, UWHC director of compensation and benefits, and committee facilitator. “The resulting donations will make a difference in the communities served by UW Health and those in which our patients and employees live and work.”

Allowing employees to direct the philanthropic efforts of the company is an excellent way to promote employee engagement, as UWHC has observed.  Employees develop a greater sense of meaning, impact, and connection in their jobs when presented with such opportunities.

  • Meaning—When employees are able to decide how their employers give back to the community, employees value their work as something more than just a means of earning a paycheck; they are able to be engaged in the company’s mission and they feel like their opinions are important to the organization.
  • Impact—When a company listens to the collective voice of its employees and turns their feedback into results, employees feel a sense of impact on the organization, the surrounding community, or the entire global community.  By allowing employees to nominate organizations and causes to be beneficiaries of corporate giving, employees feel that their opinions and actions yield positive external effects and they become further motivated to perform well in their jobs.
  • Connection—When employees collectively nominate organizations to receive charitable gifts from their company, they feel a stronger connection to each other through the cause they are supporting.

We have noticed this even with our own organization.  At DecisionWise, employees are also encouraged to support organizations we are passionate about.  DecisionWise Assessment Office Manager, Katie Nelson, explained her excitement at the opportunity to nominate an organization: “I was so excited DecisionWise was willing to take recommendations for charities from their employees.  I am proud to work for a company that takes such a personal interest in its employees and community.”

How have you seen employee-directed corporate giving impact employee engagement?  Join the discussion in the comments.

The Employee Engagement Choice: Job, Career, or Calling?

As we’ve researched trends in employee engagement, we consistently find dissonance in levels of engagement between a person who views his job as—well, a job—and people who have turned their “jobs” into careers or callings. Yale psychologist Amy Wrzesniewski, for example, has published research on how the mental conceptions we all have about our jobs affect our performance and our happiness. Her studies find that different people can see their employment as any of the three aforementioned types (jobs, careers, or callings), regardless of the position they hold (and even if they all hold the same position).

In one portion of her studies, Wrzesniewski found that among 24 administrative assistants (all of whom had nearly identical conditions of employment) perceptions of job, career, and calling were represented in almost equal thirds. Intrigued by this observation, we’ve sought to differentiate between people who see their work as a job, as a career, and as a calling. Here’s what we’ve been able to surmise:

  • Job—People who have jobs and see them as nothing more than jobs are generally satisfied. (Remember what we said about employee satisfaction?) These individuals go to work, fulfill their responsibilities, and anticipate the reward of a paycheck. Rarely, if ever, do they choose to connect their job description to the success of the company or to the betterment of society or self.  These individuals, sadly, are not engaged.
  • Career—People who see their jobs as careers are focused on self-improvement, advancement, and contributing to the overall success of the company. Though they may exhibit some levels of engagement, these individuals have not chosen to realize their full potential and therefore do not achieve the levels of success they are capable of.
  • Calling—People who feel a connection between their personal values and their work generally see their employment as a calling. They embrace company goals, values, and objectives, committing themselves to success because they see the bigger picture. These individuals have made the choice to leverage their talents as they contribute to the success of their company; they witness their actions contributing to a greater good.

Notice the recurring theme in each of these mindsets (especially the last one): we all have an employee engagement choice to make about how we view our employment. We can all become the remarkable people who view “jobs” as callings. When we choose to have this mindset, we become more productive assets of human capital to our companies and we develop greater feelings of engagement and personal satisfaction in our work.
This research leads us to one question, though: whose responsibility is it to establish the calling mindset in an organization? Are employers responsible for cultivating such a mindset as part of the company culture, or are employees more valuable when they choose to individually develop this paradigm?
5 Keys of Employee Engagement White Paper
Related Post: Motivate me. I dare you.

Employee Engagement in the Restaurant Industry

Employee satisfaction vs employee engagement

In our recent benchmarking study, we compared several employee engagement surveys from 11 restaurant brands and discovered that the aggregate restaurant engagement scores run parallel to our overall engagement benchmark. This is in some ways a surprise, given the high turnover rates of restaurants. Many assume that restaurants’ engagement levels should be lower.

Continue reading