IS YOUR EMPLOYER HAPPY?

Many questions fly around our work environment every day and very few of these, if there are any would be about the happiness of employers. The demand for happiness seems to be in the exclusive preserve of the employees and so much has been written in respect to employees’ satisfaction, employees’ engagement, fair treatment of employees and all of that, however, books and articles on how to make the employers happy seems too scanty or almost non-existence. A quick search of the phrase “employees satisfaction” found 17,900,000 results; the number rose to 44,400,000 when I searched for “employees engagement”; for employees happiness and employees unhappiness the numbers were 8,060,000 and 3,180,000 respectively. Then I searched for the phrase “employers happiness”, and the giant search engine returned just 194,000 results, and many of these pages were still about happy employees.

One is forced to ask, Are employers not part of the happiness equation? Is the perception given to employers only limited to Shylock, whose only motive is profit? Does the employer deserve to be happy? Or is there a skewed assumption that all Employers are delighted? Can an employer on the brink of bankruptcy coupled with the lacklustre performance of employees be satisfied and also work assiduously to make its employees happy? What about employers who are losing resources due to employees infidelity? Before we go further ask yourself, is your employer happy? Could there be happy employees without happy employers?

What is good for the employee is good for the employer

There are no arguments; employees deserve to be happy. Every organisation must build a culture of encouraging and fostering a positive work environment that inspires employees to take joy in their work. Employees’ happiness is so crucial in today’s business that there are Chief Happiness Officers in some organisations (CHO). Google started this trend at the early phase of its development, and Chade-Meng Tan, one of its earlier software engineer, who help build Google’s first mobile search service, and headed the team that kept a vigilant eye on Google’s search quality was noted to make people happy, so a few years later, he was given the role of “Jolly Good Fellow”. This single decision changed the entire culture of Silicon Valley. Meng’s chief responsibility is to spread happiness across the organisation. Happiness became his job. That said, employees should also be self-aware that they are equally duty-bound to make the employer happy too, and it is very easy to do that – take care of their business!

Officer Rowan- The 8^th Habit by Stephen Covey.

Let’s take a look at an employee that truly made his employer happy. What are the attributes that stood him out? In his book, the 8^Th Habit, Stephen Covey said:

“When war broke out between Spain and the United States at the turn of the century, President McKinley needed to get a message quickly to a Cuban revolutionary known as Garcia.  He was hiding somewhere on the island of Cuba out of reach of mail or telegraph, and nobody seemed to know how to reach him.  But someone suggested that if anybody could do it, it would be an officer named Rowan.

When McKinley gave the letter to officer Rowan in Washington, D.C., the officer didn’t ask, “Where is he at? How do I get there? What do you want me to do when I’m there? How will I get back?”  He just took the message and figured out how to get to Garcia.  He took a train to New York. A ship to Jamaica. Broke the Spanish blockade to get to Cuba in a sailboat. Then wild carriage rides, marching and riding through the Cuban jungle.  Nine days of travelling later, Rowan got the message to Garcia at nine in the morning.  That same afternoon at five, he started his return journey to the United States.”

Mr Hubbard comments further upon this story by writing,

“My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the boss is away as well as when he is at home,… the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly take the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it… Civilisation is one long, anxious search for just such individuals.  Anything such a man asks will be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go.  He is wanted in every city, town and village – in every office, shop, store and factory.  The world cries out for such: he is needed and needed badly.

How to make your employer happy

Every employer is in search of employees like Rowan. Under normal circumstances, the employers are supposed to take care of average employees, imagine what they will do to exceptional ones. Such employees are simply delights. Below are a few points to make your employer’s happy.

Understand the vision and fulfil the mission:

Officer Rowan understood the vision and the mission; do you understand the mission and vision of your organisation? If you don’t understand the vision, how can you help your employers to achieve it? If the mission is blurry to you or if you cannot recollect it, how could you deliver on it? Officer Rowan did the unthinkable because he understood the vision.

Uphold the value of your organisation:

What does your organisation stand for? Do you live the value of the organisation?  Stealing in the workplace is very rampant. Employees steal cash, office supplies and proprietary information such as trade secrets. Employees also steal their employers time to attend to their business. All these are burdensome to employers, so to make your employers happy play by the rule that governs the organisation value.

Ask for more assignment rather than wait for it:

Many employees, rather than ask for the assignment or job that they know is coming will wait to be told. They are always waiting for the next task, and so they bring no initiative, and they want to do the little to pass by. A mentor of mine calls them Dr or Mr “DoLittle”. Stop living by just doing the minimum, ask for more jobs and more tasks. Apart from benefiting your organisation, you are benefiting yourself greatly.

Quit the excuse, do it:

Officer Rowan did not ask any idiotic questions; how often do you give excuses regarding an assigned task? To make your employer happy, develop an attitude that lives beyond excuse, get at the assignment, do it with your whole earth, rather than narrating the story of failure, return to your boss with the story of how you almost failed. The world is full of excuses, it is very cheap, yet the world doesn’t want to buy it.

Show empathy to your organisation:

Walk-in your employer’s shoe then you will understand the pressure they face and how their heart bleeds for poor performance. You will appreciate their ambition and frustration. When you work in their shoe, your job will be a delight, your mannerism will be pleasant, and your behaviour will be desirable.

Put your heart to work:

The scripture says “see a man diligent in his work; he will stand before kings and not before ordinary people” Colossians 3:23. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.  Diligence requires that you put your heart to work. Eye service is a common phenomenon in the workplace, but do you do your job well whether the boss is around or not, whether you are being supervised or not and whether there is an obvious reward or not?

Conclusion – What goes around comes around:

Happiness expectation should not be one-sided as it is currently being practised. While employers of labour are always on the hot seat to do what is right for their employees, their employees must live in the consciousness of doing all they can to make the employer/bosses happy. When the employer is happy, employees will be happy and vice versa. To go far in your career, be like officer Rowan, stop asking idiotic questions, stop giving unnecessary excuses, put your mind to work and live for the vision of your organisation. This virtue will make you better and open bigger doors to you. Officer Rowan didn’t know anyone was watching; you may also not be aware that eyes are on you as you do your work.