When Less is More

Executives, managers and HR professionals obsess over how to build engaged workforces and get employees excited to come to work.  It doesn’t help that companies like Facebook and Google tout their open, friendly cultures, prompting many organizations to try and copy them.

But this is often a losing game.  First of all, cultures aren’t defined by perks.  Second, the harder you try to keep up with trends, the more expensive and frustrating things become.  I’ve learned that sometimes eliminating pain points leads to far more motivation and engagement then trying to provide the latest fads and perks.

Think about a family.  You try to wow your kids with a trip to Disney.  They’ll enjoy it.  They’ll have great memories.  That won’t however compensate for the fact you get home late every day from work and spend weekends answering emails and getting caught up on work projects.  Your kids would be far more engaged from spending more time with you during evenings and weekends than they will be from a once-in-a-lifetime family trip.  And if you don’t realize this, you’ll be spending more time and money on trips, experiences, and vacations and not get the kind of adoration you want from your kids.

The same applies to employees.  Free lunches, contests, gift cards, and games seem like an easy way to get commitment, but the commitment you see lasts as long as the “high” from the experience.  Then you’ll exhaust time and budget trying to top each event.  But what if you simply found out what their biggest chronic complaints were (I wish mom wouldn’t spend each night doing work and would read me a book instead) and fixed those?  Here are a list of the most common complaints I hear when working with organizations:

• Closed doors: “Every time I go to speak to HR, the door is always closed.”
• Bad employees:  “Why won’t my boss correct that dead weight employee who is putting us all behind?”
• Unrealistic deadlines:  “Why does my boss email me a task on Sunday evening that’s due Monday morning?”
• Stupid policies:  “Why is it I have to drive 90 minutes in traffic one-way only to sit at a computer monitor and do tasks I could just as easily done from a remote office?”
• Useless meetings:  “This weekly staff meeting accomplishes nothing that a simple email could have done.”

Free soda, ping pong tables, and gift cards won’t fix anything on that list, and in fact will be insulting after a while.  Address the pain and maybe some pleasure will follow.

So, if you’d like to have a more engaged, motivated workforce, try doing LESS but ADDRESS more.  This is a clear case where LESS IS MORE!