Manager Tight Rope: Employee Satisfaction vs. Financial Results

 

Which of these movies most accurately reflect how your employees perceive the work conditions at your workplace?

• Wall Street
• Mad Max
• The Godfather
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
• Panic Room

Does it really matter that much?

The manager featured here thinks that employee perception is secondary. He was reacting against comments that a key focus area must be with employees, saying that the focus of managers should instead be on meeting customers' needs and making sure the business is successful. He says managers should make sure employees are focusing on the same things.

Now we have objective evidence to help us see where the manager's focus should be. Gallup, Inc published a study that found if you know the employee perceptions of their jobs, you can predict organizational success. So, if you know that employees have positive perceptions, you know the organization benefits with real financial results. Does it work the other way? Not so much. Just because the company is successful does not mean employees will have positive perceptions of their jobs.

Now we have a way to bridge the gap that keeps coming up in the conversation about how far is it worthwhile to go to obtain employee engagement. The manager's focus should indeed be on employee engagement as that will lead to real organizational benefits, but part of that focus should be to make sure that employees are clear on organizational objectives.

Gallup said in their published work that a tactic for managers to improve employee satisfaction would be to "clarify expectations for employees by helping employees see the ultimate outcomes the organisation is working to achieve and how they play a role in achieving those outcomes."

Any project manager can make sure the project's business case is communicated to the workforce.