Attitudes and Values

Although the last entry made was about a similar topic but in a larger way, it would be interesting to answer the question: What kind of attitude does my employee have towards my company? Or, better on, why is my employee working for me?

Taken from farm4.static.flickr.com

Happiness / Unhappiness, Leave / Stay, Fire / Ignore. These are variables that both CEO's and employees have to face day by day, because of work issues. Not every work fits every person, nor every person is willing to take every job proposal they recive. There was an interesting blog at the NY Times about an owner of five small stores in Chicago, he said something remarkable: "You can try, you can listen, you can solve some problems, you can try some more. Good management requires training, counseling and patience, but there comes a point when you are robbing the business of precious time and energy." 1 He later added: "Bad management can make a good employee dysfunctional. On the other hand, good management will not always make a dysfunctional employee good. And sometimes people who would be great employees somewhere else just don’t fit your company, whether it is the type of business or the company culture." 2 His solution was simple, if you have an unhappy worker, then you should fire him.

www.happinessatworkindex.co.uk

There are lots of studies about why a worker, even if he/she is not happy will stay at his/her job. But the matter itself for a CEO would be about if the company can afford to lose a great employee because they cannot make that employee happy. A study in England called "The Happiness at Work Index and Employment Study from Badenoch & Clark" had some interesting statistics about which were the most important things from the employees about their jobs (Figure 1) and, as it can be seen many of the topics composed what it would be the attitude of an employee towards a job depending on how these variables were met. The study also found that: "nearly a fifth (18%) of respondents are actively looking to move jobs and over 41% expect to change jobs this year" 3 Why are they looking for jobs if they stated that they were happy at their actual work places? Well, this answer cannot be given. Happiness varies in definition from person to person, so even if these people state that they are happy, most of them may not be achieving their goals on their current workspace. Theories and models have to be taken into account if the goal is to retain Human Resources.

Quotes

1 Goltz, Jay (2010). The Secret to Having Happy Employees; Paragraph 5, Lines 2 to 5. The New York Times. You're  The Boss, The New York Times Business Blogs. Access 02/02/2011 Retrieved from http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/the-secret-to-having-happy-employees/

2 Goltz, Jay (2010). The Secret to Having Happy Employees; Paragraph 6, Lines 3 to 7. The New York Times. You're  The Boss, The New York Times Business Blogs. Access 02/02/2011 Retrieved from http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/the-secret-to-having-happy-employees/

3 Badenoch & Clark (2010). Workforce happier but no time for complacency; Paragraph 2, Lines 2 to 3. The Happiness at Work Index and Employment Study from Badenoch & Clark. The Happiness at Work Index from Badenoch & Clark. Access 02/02/2011 Retrieved from http://www.happinessatworkindex.co.uk/ 

Bibliography

Goltz, Jay (2010). The Secret to Having Happy Employees. The New York Times. You're  The Boss, The New York Times Business Blogs. Access 02/02/2011 Retrieved from http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/the-secret-to-having-happy-employees/

Badenoch & Clark (2010). Workforce happier but no time for complacency. The Happiness at Work Index and Employment Study from Badenoch & Clark. The Happiness at Work Index from Badenoch & Clark. Access 02/02/2011 Retrieved from http://www.happinessatworkindex.co.uk/

Fox, Justin (2008). How to Succeed? Make Employees Happy. Time Magazine Webpage. Time Magazine Webpage. Access 02/02/2011 Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1818183,00.html

D'Amato, Gina (2011). Attitudes and Values Lecture. EAFIT University, Medellín Colombia.