The typical case in this regard is Google. In just a few years, Google has developed from a little-known company into the most famous search company because of its high efficiency and excellent employees. The high efficiency comes from the high satisfaction of employees. Google provides employees with a free and trustworthy working environment. Employees can bring their beloved dogs back to the office, have lunch and dinner for free at any time in the company cafeteria, and even allow employees to play hockey during office hours without delaying their work. As a result, employees work happily in this free and trusting environment, creating a "Google myth". The president of Oceanton Industrial Company in the United States even summed up a "golden rule": "Take care of your customers and your employees, and the market will take care of you more."
In the common sense of many enterprises, there is a perfect positive correlation between employee satisfaction and enterprise performance, but what is the fact?
The truth under the aura
In the 1920s, American Western Electric Company conducted the famous Hawthorne experiment. This study, which lasted for 12 years, shows that workers have strong feelings about their work, and interpersonal relationship and work attitude factors seem to be more important than economic and physical environment factors for work enthusiasm and productivity. The main reason why researchers are interested in employee satisfaction is based on the assumption that employee job satisfaction will directly affect their job performance. However, this hypothesis has not found reliable evidence so far. Who are the reasons for satisfaction and job performance? Who is the fruit? This is a long-term discussion in theoretical circles.
Of course, enterprises with high employee satisfaction have low turnover rate, which reduces the losses caused by frequent turnover; Satisfied employees devote themselves to their work with greater enthusiasm, creating higher work efficiency, which means greater profits. An authoritative survey by Harvard Business Weekly shows that for every three percentage points increase in employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction will increase by 5%, and the average profit rate of companies with 80% satisfaction will be 20% higher than that of other companies in the same industry. Is that really the case? There are some common phenomena in reality: enterprises that satisfy employees are not necessarily excellent enterprises; Companies that satisfy employees may not necessarily make employees work hard and so on.
So, what is the relationship between employee satisfaction and enterprise performance?
There is no direct relationship between employee satisfaction and employee work efficiency. Employee satisfaction is always related to working environment, learning opportunities, development opportunities, welfare and salary. And these contents are weakly related to work efficiency, and even some contents have nothing to do with it. For an enterprise that expects to improve work efficiency, a good elimination mechanism may play a greater role than a good salary scheme. Moreover, employees' satisfaction is relative, and changes with the change of employees' psychological state. 、
According to the survey, there is no necessary connection between employee satisfaction and performance in many enterprises. In addition, efforts to improve employee satisfaction sometimes have a negative impact on the company's performance. After a long-term study, an entrepreneur came to the conclusion that "efforts to improve employee satisfaction will have a negative effect on the company's performance". The entrepreneur pointed out that satisfied employees are not necessarily efficient employees. On the contrary, sometimes, employees are dissatisfied or even very dissatisfied, such as when the pressure is great or the position is threatened. However, he can have high performance, because he must have high performance to get rid of threats and reduce pressure; Satisfied employees are not necessarily willing to reform when the company needs to reform in order to maintain their "satisfaction"; Satisfied employees may be just average, not very good. In an enterprise, some employees have average ability, average performance and average requirements. These people are easy to satisfy, so their satisfaction may be quite high. However, the company's performance must be low; Research shows that in order to encourage employees to change the status quo and "move forward", enterprises need a certain degree of "employee dissatisfaction" Because they are dissatisfied, they will try to change the status quo. For those who are keen to improve enterprise performance by improving employee satisfaction, he suggested that the question of predicting performance must be added to the satisfaction questionnaire. For example, ask some questions that can trigger action, put pressure on managers to take action and improve performance; Ensure that the survey data can be fed back to the boss in time; Increase the frequency of investigation; Let the survey questions reflect what is most important to your business, and so on.
Solve the mystery of engagement
At the same time, the theoretical circle has also carried out research in another field: employee engagement. The research on employee engagement originated from Gallup. After nearly 40 years of painstaking research on the relationship between the success factors of enterprises, they established the "Gallup Path" model to describe the path between individual performance of employees, the final operating performance of the company and the overall value added of the company. Gallup research found that grass-roots managers are the key link between the preceding and the following in enterprise organizations. On the one hand, they maintain the stability and dedication of employees, on the other hand, they decompose the macro-strategy of enterprises into phased goals and implement them in daily governance activities. Therefore, the only way to make employees dedicated is to create a positive and efficient working environment, and the factors that affect the degree of dedication directly affect and guide the daily behavior of each employee.
As for the relationship between engagement and corporate performance, Liu Yuan, president of Aon Consulting Greater China, once said: "The employer who makes employees most satisfied is not necessarily the best. Employee satisfaction is only one aspect. We don't use the measure of satisfaction, we use participation. " "You can be satisfied, but it doesn't necessarily translate satisfaction into better job performance or create better job performance. If employees fail to truly turn motivation into action, such employers will undoubtedly fail. " Simon Keeley, director of consulting business of Hewitt Greater China, also expressed similar views. The results of Hewitt's employee engagement survey for several years show that dedicated employees do have a great impact on business results: the per capita profit is 3800 dollars higher than that of other companies; The per capita market value is $65,438 +0.86 million higher than other companies; Per capita sales are $27,000 higher than those of other companies. Fortune magazine's survey of the top employers in the United States 100 also shows that the share prices of companies with higher engagement scores are 12% higher than those of other companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.
Hewitt's research on 1500 enterprises involves the survey data of customers and best employers of Hewitt's global "engagement" consulting project, which reveals the close relationship between engagement and performance. Hewitt believes that employee engagement measures the degree to which employees are willing to stay in the company and work hard to serve the company. There are three levels of behavior of dedicated employees: the first level is willingness to publicize (say), that is, employees often say good things about the company to colleagues, people who may join the company, customers and potential customers. The second layer is willing to stay, that is, employees have a strong desire to stay in the organization. The third level is struggle, which is the highest level of dedication, that is, employees are not only devoted to their work, but also willing to make extra efforts to promote the success of enterprises.
At present, a large number of studies have proved that there is a very close relationship between employee engagement and enterprise performance. Compared with enterprises with average employee engagement, enterprises with very dedicated employees have obvious economic benefits. Engagement is also closely related to many aspects of the enterprise. For example, in terms of talent flow, research shows that employees with high degree of professionalism have high loyalty, so the talent flow rate of such enterprises is generally low, and the overall talent development of enterprises is relatively stable, which is conducive to the normal development of enterprises. In addition, there is a high correlation between employees' expectation of enterprise prospects and their engagement. Basically, it can be said that the better the enterprise benefits, the more dedicated the employees are. At the same time, engagement is also closely related to the scale of the enterprise: it presents a slow wave curve, that is, when the scale of the enterprise is small, the employee engagement index is slightly lower. With the expansion of the enterprise scale, the engagement index also rises, but when the enterprise scale expands to a certain extent, the engagement index will fall again, and when the enterprise scale expands again, the employee engagement index will rise again.
Create the sword of enterprise participation
Mercer Consulting has identified four stages that represent the improvement of employees' enterprise engagement level and conform to a specific mentality. First, satisfied employees perform their duties and are satisfied with the terms and conditions of employment. At the same time, they are not necessarily all-out team members, and often do not make greater efforts. Second, self-motivated employees are full of energy and pay attention to individual contributions to the enterprise. However, on the whole, they pay more attention to the realization of personal goals than team goals or enterprise goals. Third, fully engaged employees completely make the values and behaviors represented in the initial stage of the engagement model become their subjective consciousness, and also form a strong recognition of the enterprise. They are conscientious to the enterprise and optimistic about its future. Fourth, employees who support the enterprise can share weal and woe with the enterprise. They spare no effort to invest, strive to reach the highest standards, and fully integrate the spirit of innovation into their own and team work. They will take the initiative to find ways to help achieve the company's goals. They praised the company's products and services and recommended them to others as ideal companies. It is found that it is at this stage of engagement that employee performance has the greatest relationship with enterprise performance.
Generally speaking, no matter which stage employees are in the engagement continuum, enterprises must optimize the working relationship between employees and employers through management, so as to promote employee engagement to enter the next stage. Then, as a human resources department, how to cultivate employees' professionalism is particularly urgent.
1. Make suggestions for the future development of employees.
Planning a career for every employee, letting every employee see his growth direction and space, and thus mobilizing the enthusiasm of employees is the best way to improve employee engagement.
At present, large foreign enterprises gradually introduce employee career management as the basic work of human resource management. Many enterprises in developed countries have perfect PPDF (Personal Performance Development File) and hold various career-oriented trainings. For example, Microsoft, in terms of employee career development, completely lets employees be masters of their own affairs and designs their own personal career development plans according to employee needs. The role of the company is to provide resources, provide suggestions and create diversified development opportunities. Every year, there are three months to pay attention to the development of employees. Microsoft faces up to the diversity of employees' career choices and openly and actively provides them with various directions. Every year, employees will be trained in career planning and told what ways they can develop themselves.
Second, to create an incentive corporate culture
Mercer believes that culture plays an irreplaceable role in improving employee engagement. The management mode of an enterprise is a reflection of its culture-the way it treats employees and the way employees treat colleagues and customers, and the management mode cannot be separated from the professionalism of employees.
The philosopher James once said: "The most eager requirement in human nature is the desire to be affirmed." Being affirmed is an incentive, which can make employees develop their strengths and avoid weaknesses, release their potential and work hard bravely and actively; At the same time, this atmosphere can make managers and managed people appreciate each other and form a benign interaction ... In this corporate culture, employees' self-confidence and sense of responsibility can be effectively stimulated, and employees' potential can also be effectively and actively tapped, eventually becoming high-performance employees and making enterprises become efficient enterprises.
Enterprises with high degree of dedication can often make employees full of passion for the future of the company, provide them with a clear direction, and let employees feel a sense of accomplishment at work. At the same time, managers show superior leadership skills than other enterprises. In the eyes of employees, they are good at enterprise management and are models of enterprise values, and often contact and communicate with employees in an open and sincere way.
2. Establish a salary system that is competitive externally and fair internally.
Now it is generally believed in management that "first-class companies should use first-class employees and pay first-class salaries". Generally speaking, what employees value is whether they get a fair reward that matches their contribution. With the improvement of employees' working ability, many people may feel that there is not enough balance between the compensation given by the company and their personal ability and the value created for the company, so once they have the opportunity to find a job with better pay, they are likely to quit. Because the salary reduces the employee's engagement, the loss to the enterprise is actually great.
The insiders believe that if enterprises can't provide competitive salary, they can also start with improving internal fairness and improve employees' satisfaction with salary. When solving this problem, the human resources department should pay attention to the process of salary management, not the result of salary management. For example, when formulating the salary system, the human resources department can involve employees. Practice has proved that employees' participation in decision-making can make decisions easier to implement, improve employees' satisfaction with salary management, and then improve employees' professional quality.
Fourth, establish and improve the talent selection mechanism.
Gallup once conducted a survey, interviewing more than 200,000 managers and 3 million employees, and found that the way for excellent organizations to develop and release great energy of employees lies in selecting and cultivating excellent managers.
Since the financial crisis, enterprises have become more and more aware of the strategic significance of human capital to enterprise development, and have taken various measures to prevent the brain drain from being put on the agenda by management. To cultivate dedicated employees, enterprises should attach importance to the selection, training, requirements, assessment and development of employees, effectively cultivate excellent dedicated employees and bring loyal customers, thus bringing about the sustainable development of enterprises and the sustained growth of actual profits.