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Employee happiness and business success are linked

economist.com

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Re: Employee happiness and business success are linked

#221

Post by elindbe2 »

Qwertystop wrote: post #186
ghaff wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tend to be somewhat upscale in terms of ingredients, employee training, overall experience, etc. That's not to say that Burger King or McDonald's couldn't do better. I don't really have enough experience with them as a customer or anything else to have a real opinion. But I suspect that, if Burger King were to try to improve their experience in a way that forced them to raise prices by 25% they'd lose a lot of b…

> A lot of people are pretty much in the position where they have to shop on price. Keep in mind, though, that if a larger portion of money went to the workers, less of them would be in that position.

Only if that happens across the board, not in one particular company.

Re: Employee happiness and business success are linked

#222

Post by seattle_spring »

sandmansandine wrote: post #115
achenatx wrote: post #94

I use a book called "first break all the rules" It is also based on gallup data. They determined that employee happiness was not correlated to company success. They did find that the following questions in order were highly correlated to company success. 1. Do I know what is expected of me at work? 2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right? 3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I…

These questions are also rephrased versions of questions mentioned in most management books I've read that are focused on employee development. The more I dig into employee development and management the more I realize a lot of startups, claiming they're data-driven, just skip over all data related to actually managing people, managing work spaces, etc.

Bingo. I see this all the time with companies who claim to use some variant of "agile methadologies": heavy use of tracking and upward visibility, but a complete disregard for the parts that protect developer productivity and independence.

Re: Employee happiness and business success are linked

#223

Post by arrozconcosas »

tuxxy wrote: post #154
arrozconcosas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting out of the hole of "surviving to the next month" requires a few years of developing and investing in yourself to build a valued skillset. It's very hard to do when you don't have a clue about what that path can be. I took a lot longer to get to my current spot because I didn't know this path existed when I was younger because no one around me even knew this industry existed.

Come on, it's incredibly disingenuous to suggest that all folks living paycheck-to-paycheck don't have a valuable skill set. It's also incredibly offensive and elitist, too.

I didn't mean it that way. I meant to say that if you are asking yourself "what can I do to improve my situation" sometimes the answer is to invest in yourself! It isn't meant to be judgemental or to suggest there aren't other factors that influence what financial position you find yourself in. How about offering other suggestions as to what people can do to move away from 'paycheck to paycheck' situatins instead of calling other people names?

Re: Employee happiness and business success are linked

#224

Post by arrozconcosas »

ndiscussion wrote: post #202
tuxxy wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, it's incredibly disingenuous to suggest that all folks living paycheck-to-paycheck don't have a valuable skill set. It's also incredibly offensive and elitist, too.

If it's so valuable, why are they living paycheck-to-paycheck? I'd say that their skillset is defacto not valuable enough for their wellbeing.

Financial positions are not exclusively a function of your skillset. Your accreditations also matter (e.g. degrees or certifications). Wealth also begets wealth so if you have connections you can actually get a job without any skillset (not saying its right, but it is a reality). The real question is "what can people do to improve their current financial situation". I'd love to see a discussion on that.

Re: Employee happiness and business success are linked

#225

Post by squirrelicus »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #217
squirrelicus wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A CEO only has to be right 51% of the time to be successful.

That really depends.

Sure, my statement is merely metaphorically true. It's meant to communicate the point that the CEO must optimize for being right enough frequently enough to be successful. Competition surely drives whatever that number is up, and good managers surely listen to the ideas from their line workers. And they must mentally triage ideas to be worth considering more deeply. The best managers credit the line workers and encourage more idea sharing. But the manager must do the triage, and the manager must ignore ideas that don't pass the bar, and the manager must empower only those that have a track record of producing good ideas and not the others.

Re: Employee happiness and business success are linked

#226

Post by Qwertystop »

elindbe2 wrote: post #221
Qwertystop wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of people are pretty much in the position where they have to shop on price. Keep in mind, though, that if a larger portion of money went to the workers, less of them would be in that position.

Only if that happens across the board, not in one particular company.

No? Even if only the employees of one particular company get a wage increase, that's however-many-people-work-there who now have more money to spend. It might not be a very large number of people, depending on the company, but it doesn't have to happen across the board for the people to exist.

Re: Employee happiness and business success are linked

#227

Post by Qwertystop »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #215
Qwertystop wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Low margin" is relative. If the owner is taking home more money than the employees, there's room to shift things. I would bet quite a lot that most Burger Kings are in that position.

Profit margin is the amount left for the owner after all expenses are paid. Googling shows restaurants in general have single digit profit margins, so there isn’t much room for pay increases, especially if the owner wants to save for capital improvements like renovations, equipment, or new restaurants.

"Single digit profit margins" is in terms of percentages. I'm talking absolutes: However low the profit margin is as a percentage, as long as it's positive and the owner makes more than enough to live on, it could be made lower by a pay increase.
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