ENGL B2b U3.LIRN - Nice - Work - Bartleby

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Nice work; Bartleby

Date: Aug. 3, 2019
From: The Economist(Vol. 432, Issue 9154.)
Publisher: Economist Intelligence Unit N.A. Incorporated
Document Type: Article
Length: 666 words
Full Text:
Employee happiness and business success are linked
OUR STAFF are our most important asset. Many managers have intoned this mantra over the years but plenty of employees have
probably thought to themselves that, deep down, executives place a higher value on the machines on the factory floor or cash in the
bank.
That impression can be reinforced when executives refer to the need to maximise "shareholder value". The implication is that keeping
equity investors happy is a company's main priority. Employees fall into the lesser category of "stakeholders", along with component
suppliers.
To many American businesspeople, the concept of "stakeholder capitalism" is often seen as a woolly European notion. The
assumption is that firms that focus on stakeholders will struggle to survive in the Darwinian world of multinational business.
It is easy to be cynical about some of the language used by those who argue that employees should be treated better. One obvious
example is a book called "Humane Capital" by Vlatka Hlupic, which includes a foreword by the Dalai Lama and is dedicated,
portentously, "to humanity".
But there is a serious point hidden amid its grandiose statements. Too many companies operate a top-down "command and control"
system, Ms Hlupic argues, when they would be better served by giving employees more freedom to make their own decisions.
However, hard-headed executives will be won round only by hard facts. A convincing case can be found in a recent paper* by
Christian Krekel, George Ward and Jan-Emmanuel de Neve. The study, based on data compiled by Gallup, a polling organisation,
covers nearly 1.9m employees across 230 separate organisations in 73 countries.
The authors studied four potential measures of corporate performance: customer loyalty, employee productivity, profitability and staff
turnover. They found that employee satisfaction had a negative link with staff turnover and a substantial positive correlation with
customer loyalty. It was correlated with higher productivity and, less strongly, with profitability.
Of course, correlation does not prove causality. It could be the case that working for a successful company makes employees more
contented, rather than the other way round. However, the authors cite studies of changes within individual firms and organisations
which seem to show that improvements in employee morale precede gains in productivity, rather than the reverse.
What might explain the link? One school of thought, known as human-relations theory, has long argued that higher employee well-
being is associated with higher productivity, not least because happy workers are less prone to absenteeism or quitting. However, as
the authors of the paper admit, there is precious little research on the best measures that managers can take to improve employee
well-being, or indeed which are the most cost-effective.
Rather like the judge's famous dictum about obscenity, a well-run company may be hard to define but you can recognise it when you
see it. Workers will be well informed about a company's plans and consulted about the roles they will play. Staff will feel able to raise
problems with managers without fearing for their jobs. Bullying and sexual harassment will not be permitted. Employees may work
hard, but they will be allowed sufficient time to recuperate, and enjoy time with their families. In short, staff will be treated as people,
not as mere accounting units.
That may be a difficult approach for executives brought up on the philosophy of Frederick Winslow Taylor, an efficiency guru of the
late 19th and early 20th century, who wrote of the danger that workers "tend to become more or less shiftless, extravagant and
dissipated". Armed with a stopwatch, Taylor dragooned employees into increasing production in the iron and steel industries.
Most employees no longer cart heavy loads around all day, of course. Their tasks involve creativity and empathy when dealing with
the public. In service industries, staff really are a company's most important asset. And that is why the best executives will realise that
a contented workforce is a prerequisite for corporate success.
Economist.com/blogs/bartleby
* Employee Wellbeing, Productivity and Firm Performance, Said Business School, WP 2019-04
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Economist Intelligence Unit N.A. Incorporated

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Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Nice work; Bartleby." The Economist, 3 Aug. 2019, p. 54(US). Gale OneFile: Entrepreneurship,
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A595174031/PPSB?u=lirn17237&sid=PPSB&xid=9d1f6e6f. Accessed 4 Nov. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A595174031

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Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Economist Intelligence Unit N.A. Incorporated

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