Tweet

Happy Workers Are Productive Employees - Truth or Fiction?

Guest post by: Dr. Maynard Brusman

Article Overview: I coach a number of managers who are surprised that increase happiness and satisfaction at work doesn't always translate into increased productivity. Emotionally intelligent managers develop their people resulting in improved work place performance.

Happy Workers Are Productive Employees - Truth or Fiction?

Productive Employees

Are you working in an organization where managers develop employees to be more productive? Do employees at your workplace believe that company perks help them become more productive?

I coach a number of managers who are surprised that increase happiness and satisfaction at work doesn't always translate into increased productivity. Emotionally intelligent managers develop their people resulting in improved work place performance.

Myth - Happy workers are productive workers.

Everyone assumes satisfied workers are naturally more productive. This theory plays out as flexible work hours, onsite childcare and workout facilities, retirement plans and attractive workplaces. While these amenities are nice perks, they really aren't incentives for high performance.

While there is a correlation between job satisfaction and productivity, it's actually quite minimal: between +0.14 and +0.30. Thus, no more than 9 percent-or as low as 2 percent-of the variance in output can be attributed to employee satisfaction.

This is hardly enough to justify spending more money on making employees happier and more comfortable. Such benefits may contribute to employee retention, but not to productivity. Moreover, the evidence suggests that productive workers are more likely to be happy workers, rather than the reverse.

Productivity leads to job satisfaction. If you do a good job, you feel positive about your efforts. This, in turn, fuels your energy to accomplish more. Higher productivity should also be recognized with praise, increased pay and the opportunity to earn even greater rewards.

The Real Truth: Evidence suggests productive workers are more likely to be happy workers, rather than the reverse.

Direct your efforts toward helping employees become more productive. Find ways to increase their training, improve job design, provide better tools and resources, and remove barriers that may impede them from doing a first-rate job.

Are you working in a professional services firm or other organization where executive coaches provide leadership development to help employees be more productive? Does your organization provide executive coaching to help leaders improve their ability to motivate employees to improve performance? Enlightened leaders need to improve their emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is "How can I help develop workers to be more productive?" Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent organizations provide executive coaching for leaders to improve their ability at motivating their workforce.

Working with a seasoned executive coach and leadership consultant trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-I, CPI 260 and Denison Culture Survey can help you create a more productive workplace where employees are happy. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision, mission and strategy of your company or law firm.

Related Articles
  How to be An Effective Leader in a Virtual Team
  What are the important steps to examining employee motivation and reducing employee turnover
  How Managers Create Flow Experiences
  Internal PR to Motivate Your Business Team
  Young Boss, Older Worker
  The Importance of Organisational Behaviour
  Tuition Reimbursement for Employees
  Find the Key to Motivated Employees
  Article Marketing Tips - Answer Burning Questions
  The Power of Employees
  Happy Employees = productive employess
  How to Increase your Employees Productivity at the Office
  Remote workers are happier, study says
  Financial Fact and Fiction
  Helping Staff Recover After A Layoff
  Benefits of Incentive Programs
  Human Resource Management
  How Goal Setting Makes Happy Workers
  Back to Basics: HR Lessons the Boss Needs to Know
  Henry Ford and the source of our fear

Article Tags: happiness, increased productivity, productive employees, satisfaction



Related Forum Posts
Re: Ways to Boost Productivity - 1. Give Employees More Than a Paycheck 2. Provide Better eSupport Channels to Promote Self-Service 3. Complete your most dreaded tasks first thing in the morning. 4. Outsource as much as possible 5. . Turn off the TV.
Me Too - So.... - I write. Its a form of 'pull' marketing that suits me, though I'm quite an outgoing person. I know all the stuff about it not being me, 'they're just not ready yet'. Truth is I'm not good with rejection and will walk if I get too much of it - so I do it differently. Each to his own I guess. Still, I wish I had the guts to do those 500, just to say 'I did it'! Will read that article!
How to you re-fresh yourself? - Productive time improvement is about increasing the time that you, your staff or your organisation has available for front-line service delivery; and making sure that time is being used to best effect - "working smarter" by: - doing the right things - (eliminate unnecessary work) - the right way - (use standard, streamlined processes) - with the right people - (right skills, availability, location) - using the right tools and equipment. But we all will agree that somewhere we don't follow these and give ourselves a break. When I give myself a break, I a. play online games b. chat on Internet c. Listen to some soft music What you do when you are not "working smarter"?
CEOs and Email - Slaves? - I wonder if the emails they are responding to are filtered thru their assistants first 'cos they seem to spend a lot of their off hours responding to them. True they are successful but I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay that price. I'd be interested to know what's the in the typical day planner of Entrepreneurs on the Forum. Entrepreneurs are a different breed than Paid Employees- so it would be interesting to view the contrast.
Where I want WSI to be in Dec 31 2007 - Here are my goals for end of 2007 Employees - SEO specialist - admin assistant - sales rep - designer/data entry - copy writer (may be outsourced) Target market (client base) manufacturers 10-50 million in revenue looking for integrated marketing solution ranging from 10k - 30k Systems - crm fully utilized - project management smooth process - sales and marketing to continuously generate leads SALES (My big Goal to focus on ) Last years sales revenue was $220K This year we want to hit $500K - approx 40k per month


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

What should your free giveaway be?

The Pure FUN of Learning & Using NLP

Are You Listening?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.