Best Friends At Work?

I read this New York Times’ article about how it is supposed to be harder to make friends once you pass the age of 30 and it reminded me of some old Gallup surveys I saw on employee engagement citing “having a best friend at work” as an indicator of employee engagement.

The article itself is quite interesting as someone myself who recently nudged over the line of [SPOILER ALERT] being closer to 60 than 30. Just. Recently.
“Gallup also observed that employees who report having a best friend at work were:

• 43% more likely to report having received praise or recognition for their work in the last seven days.
• 37% more likely to report that someone at work encourages their development.
• 35% more likely to report coworker commitment to quality.
• 28% more likely to report that in the last six months, someone at work has talked to them about their progress.
• 27% more likely to report that the mission of their company makes them feel their job is important.
• 27% more likely to report that their opinions seem to count at work.
• 21% more likely to report that at work, they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day.”

I don’t know if ‘having a best friend at work’ really is a major driver of employee engagement. It stirs up conversations for sure whenever I bring it up in workshops. Even Gallup referred to it as “controversial” but they stuck by it. I guess I can see it as symptomatic of a workplace culture that allows trust, belonging, contribution, support and all those good things that do definitely drive engagement. Certainly, on the flipside, those without employment at any time also lose a massive chunk of chance to interact socially which us humans definitely need. Losing a job isn’t just losing a pay-cheque.

So, what does work provide that potentially generates and builds friendships?

“As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other…”

Where these days (or ever) do those conditions occur? Schools and workplaces. And if you’re over 30, you’re probably not at school anymore. (Maybe we all should be?) Unless you’re a teacher. But then, that also counts a workplace. Teachers must have lots of friends.

Who Says Work Has To Be Fulfilling?

 

This HBR Blog post  poses a challenging and provocative question for those of us who seem to always be championing that workplaces should attract engaged employees and provide them an environment and culture that nurtures employee engagement. I’m one of those champions who sees a bedrock foundation of such a culture as having to include providing meaning for the people from their work – a purpose to get out of bed and zip in to work beyond the mere collecting of a paycheck. (Not ‘instead of’ but ‘as well as’, although there are many for whom it is ‘instead of’ and good on them but that is neither practical nor desirable for everyone.)

My scan of their post makes me think that they’re saying, “fageddaboutit.” Its too hard to find a fulfilling job. You have to make rent. Suck it up and suffer a crappy third of your day every day and whore yourself out for a buck. Even if you do luck your way into a fulfilling job, it won’t last. Get your jollies in your spare time. Be realistic.

They make many good and fair points. We do have to make rent. So do the people you lead. If everyone really was solely out to get fulfilled by their work above earning a wage, wouldn’t a lot more of us be working on water purification projects in Sub-Saharan Africa? But I can’t just let it slide. My view on getting meaning or fulfillment from your work (and the guts of what I try and advise my kids) is, Be realistic and aspirational.

Starting out, a lot of people flip a lot of burgers, push a lot of trolleys and pump a lot of gas. Substitute whatever jobs you personally perceive as being unfulfilling. I work with a lot of senior and highly qualified professionals who get an immense amount of achievement and satisfaction from their work on top of a kickass paycheque. But I work with a lot more front-line and first-time supervisors who don’t have that kickass paycheque and who don’t YET get an immense amount of achievement and satisfaction from their work – but they might.

I’m not extrapolating from the 100 or so employees I’ve worked with in the past year who stack vegetables that everyone can be fulfilled by such a routine and repetitious set of tasks. But some people can and do. I’ve met and worked with them. Most don’t. They punch a clock, make a buck and move on. Maybe their lettuce-stacking enables them to buy the turntable that launches their MC / DJ career? The moving on in the search for the possibility of eventual fulfillment is as much a driver of employee engagement as actually ever arriving at some magical and transitory arrival point called ‘fulfillment.’

Paid Work Isn’t The Same As A Job

This really provocative ‘Democracy In America’ blog in The Economist got me thinking. They make various observations about all the noise from politicians and agencies about the need for, and urgency of, job creation. Jobs as a source of income and a sense of worth for those who need it are obviously critical. But as a tributary off the main argument flowed some thinking on the subset of people who had either lost a job or opted out of traditional fulltime employment. This, to me, was the provocative bit.

The blog suggests that a significant group of talented and educated people of a certain age were certainly searching for work but not necessarily for a job. They throw in a bit of terminology like ‘Post Materialists’ and ‘Threshold Earners.’ A threshold earner has an amount they think they need / want. Once they reach it, they choose not to work anymore. Enough is good enough. This might be a great philosophy for someone like me (or subscribers to The Economist – or, more likely, people reading bits of The Economist’ free online or in libraries.)

To me, time with my kids and being fit and creative is important. I don’t just say that, I live it – now. I didn’t always used to. I think I can label myself a ‘Threshold Earner’ although I doubt I’m a Post Materialist. Certainly my kids aren’t!

Work, be it paid or otherwise, provides us humans with a lot more than money. That said, whatever the amount is, we all do need money. I’ll hug a tree but I won’t live in one. Work gives us connection, purpose, health, development, esteem and so much more. A lack of money can mess with our heads but mere money itself is not such a drawcard anymore. If, as a leader, you want to truly start to spark genuine employee engagement at your workplace you need to understand the implications and benefits of this. Lots SAY they do.

So, by all means, let Government try and do their best to stimulate job creation or, at least, get out of the way but if you’re an employer searching to attract and retain the best talent you can, you must reconsider if the old ‘jobs’ paradigm will work for you in the future or the now. If they have the talent and can improve your business’s productivity, what can you do to make it easy for Post Materialists and Threshold Earners to work for you? Actually, let’s revisit that wording because it’s important. They don’t want to work FOR you – that’s the whole point. They want to do some of the work and get paid but they don’t want to work for you. Just because you’d love to work for you doesn’t mean everyone else would.

It’s raining heavily and I am so glad I’m not living in a tree right now.

How To Destroy An Employee's Work Life

This Washington Post article by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer takes a delightfully tongue-in cheek approach to what drives talented employees out of organisations. By reverse-engineering their faux recommendations, we can glean what it is we're supposed to do to attract and retain talented people.

Their research is primary. Rather than surveys or post-exit interviews which can be self-serving, inaccurate, subjective and occasionally fictional, they chose to provide daily electronic diaries to 200+ people. Rather than Bob or Kate saying out loud that they left ABC Limited for a better paying position at XYZ Limited, there is a trail of clues. It might actually have been an escalating and deteriorating relationship with "that jerk Barry from Accounts" which, over time, led to their departure. Accumulating all those trails of clues, Amabile and Kramer have come up with their list of commandments.

Their 'advice' to leaders wanting to "completely and utterly destroy an employee's life at work" were:

1. Never allow pride of accomplishment
2. Miss no opportunity to block progress on employees' projects
3. Give yourself some credit
4. Kill the messengers

My building blocks of a workplace that allow and generate self motivation amongst employees are self awareness, mastery, autonomy, purpose and influencing others. Human minds need them like human bodies need food. Mostly, people are only going to get that at work. Without accomplishment, a sense of progess, recognition, or blame-free communication, people are not going to attain or even move towards mastery, autonomy or a sense of purpose. If you, as a leader, prevent your people from getting them, they will leave because they're hungry for a basic need.

After all that, if you still really do want to destroy an employee, take their advice and, as a cherry on top, wait until that employee leaves their PC, sneak on and hack their FaceBook account...