Posted on Wednesday, 1 September 2010

10 steps to employee bliss

Inc. ran a piece about how to make employees happy after that whole JetBlue incident. Here are 10 things all employees want.

  1. Employees want purpose: Sure, I need that check to pay the bills, but I don’t want to be a zombie just because I’m at work. It’s so important to feel like you’re doing something important.
  2. Employees want goals: And not just, get all your work done before you go home. I need real goals - something to work toward in the long-term.
  3. Employees want responsibilities: Work responsibilities are different than home responsibilities, aka chores. At work, you are part of a team, and fulfilling your responsibilities has a direct impact on your coworkers.
  4. Employees want autonomy: It might seem counterproductive, but giving your employees the freedom to work the way they want to actually helps. This isn’t high school: we don’t need to be told to read from 8:30 to 9:15 a.m. Journalism is all about deadlines, and as long as I’m meeting those deadlines, I should be allowed to write on my own time when I am not consumed with writer’s block.
  5. Employees want flexibility: To an extent. If you tell me to come to work by 9 a.m. and leave after 8:30 hours, I will. Again, it’s not high school. There’s no bell ringing at 7:35 a.m. every day.
  6. Employees want attention: Let us know you’re paying attention to what we do.
  7. Employees want opportunities for innovation: Good ideas by employees can make a huge difference in workflow, production and overall productivity. In the spring, the IDS’s editors though long and hard about how to improve work workflow: they came up with a budget blog and a whole new way to proof pages.
  8. Employees want open-mindedness: Listen to your employees ideas, and be open and honest. If the idea sucks, please let me know. If you’ll think about it, please let me know that, too.
  9. Employees want transparency: We want to know what’s going on within the company. Are we doing well? Are we losing money? It helps improve the overall mood and cut down on rumors.
  10. Employees want compensation: Duh.

Notes