The Hedonic Treadmill’s Impact on Employee Engagement
When people think about how to increase Employee Engagement in organizations, they often focus on more tangible things like perks and environment. The thought is that, if you provide your team with good benefits and a beautiful place to work that includes fun things to do in between projects, they will then become more engaged in the work. How wonderful if that were so. All any company would need do is invest in a few ping-pong tables or a weekly massage therapist and voila! Employee Engagement!
I strongly encourage any or all of it. Benefits like good health insurance and 401(k)s help you to attract and keep talent. Recreational outlets are a means to address the tension and stress that can be part of a productive work environment. However, the problem with solely providing benefits and environmental “perks” as a means of engagement is that people get used to them very quickly. It’s known as the “hedonic treadmill.”
Hedonic Treadmill – noun
The theory that humans continually adapt to bad and good circumstances and return to relative neutrality
Example: Lottery winners are the perfect example of the hedonic treadmill: within a year they generally return to their former level of happiness.
The Hedonic Treadmill recognizes that workers will quickly become used to the perks your organization so generously provides. Whether it’s great benefits or Freaky Fridays,” after awhile it becomes part of the “given” and the “expected” and they demand more. This is why you so often hear senior level executives lament, “It’s never enough for them.” (But these executives have their own version of The Hedonic Treadmill that often includes huge bonuses or better company cars.)
The Hedonic Treadmill inspires a strong argument for the three pillars of Employee Engagement that we advocate:
- Socratic Delegation
- Socratic Feedback, and
- Laughter in the Workplace.
No matter the benefits, toys or fun events provided, what has the strongest impact on Employee Engagement is the relationship between them and their direct supervisor. And those relationships play out most often when delegation and feedback are happening. When a supervisor delegates in a way that implies the team member doesn’t know what s/he is doing, de-motivation occurs. Likewise, when feedback is given in a way that leaves scars, employees mentally and emotionally check out. They do the bare minimum or start looking for other jobs.
We include laughter in the Employee Engagement equation because, as Victor Borge once famously said, “Laughter is the shortest distance between people.” When you have a supervisor you can laugh with, your engagement in the work increases. After all, you cannot laugh with someone unless you like him, even just a little. That makes it difficult to defy that person when s/he assigns you work.
If you are actively trying to increase Employee Engagement, which is at record lows across our nation, I invite you to pivot from the “give them more perks” conversation and toward the Leadership conversation.
No one ever performed their job better because of health insurance or foosball but there is a history of solid research that employees are more productive for a direct supervisor who is an effective and likable leader.
What’s Your Employee Engagement Objective?
No less a business icon than Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motors famously advised, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
What is the “always done” in your organization when it comes to engaging your employees in the day-to-day work?
When was the last time you considered what your objectives should be as related to inspiring your team toward greater engagement?’
If I haven’t yet grabbed your attention, if you’re rolling your eyes and muttering under your breath, “Here we go; more of that touch-feely stuff,” then let’s use an objective that will get your attention: INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY.
Study after study tells us unequivocally that an engaged workforce is a productive workforce. What do I mean when I say engaged? Employee Engagement is defined as the opportunity to use your creativity on a daily basis. When jobs become, “same old/same old” routines, employees quickly become disengaged and productivity drops. The drop may not be evident if you continue to successfully get the product out the door. Decreased productivity manifests in other ways:
- An increase in the amount of time it takes to get the same amount of product out the door
- More mistakes even though processes are the same (which is likely why there are more mistakes)
- General sloppiness – in the physical space, paperwork, and/or communication.
In order to define your Employee Engagement objectives, take a look at your stats. Where are the productivity leaks? How are you addressing them? And here is the most important question: what is your plan for getting your employees directly involved in addressing them? Believe me when I tell you they want to be asked. Depending on your culture and how far it has devolved, you may need to give them the opportunity to address these issues in some way other than a group meeting (who wants to stick their neck out in a group?). Here are some ideas:
- A survey conducted by an outside entity where they are guaranteed their responses will be confidential
- One-on-one meetings that are collaborative in nature, versus confrontational
- Use a fun, incredibly productive collaborative, team-building tool such as a World Cafe. I used this approach early in 2017 with a public sector group going through an upsetting amount of change. Their new Director was skeptical about his team opening up because he had trouble getting them to talk about these issues. Surprise, surprise! They came to life in the World Cafe and came up with incredible solutions to their issues. And the good news? Because these solutions were their ideas, they got implemented as agreed!
So what ARE your Employee Engagement objectives? Give it some thought. In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over till it’s over!”
Are we there yet?
In my last blog we discussed the 3rd of four key action components of leading your team:
- You know and completely understand what the team destination/goal is,
- You clearly communicate that destination to your team,
- You solicit their input for how to get there, and
- You are a walking, breathing scoreboard!
Today let’s tackle the 4th and final component – You are a walking, breathing scoreboard!
When I was Manager of Marketing Intelligence for a software company, every leader went through an annual 360o feedback process, which, by the way, is key if you have any hope of improving employee engagement.
One of the more important pieces of data I heard from my team is that, while I was skilled at providing direction, I was lacking when it came to letting them know what happened during and after the project or task was complete.
What I learned from that is twofold: (1) we all want to know where we stand in relation to each goal; and (2) we want to clearly understand the impact of our work.
Yes, we all want to know where we stand; Millennials insist on it. If your leadership style is, “I told you once you’re doing well. If it changes, I’ll let you know,” you likely have issues with your team’s productivity and ownership of their work.
We are a society deeply entrenched in keeping score, whether it’s in sports, competition-based reality shows, or political polls. Imagine watching a basketball game where they’ve changed the rules and, instead of revealing the score as the game unfolds, you don’t find out who won until the game is over! That’s what it feels like to your employees when you assign goals and don’t let them know the score as they forge ahead.
There is the argument that employees should know where they stand in relation to the goal. That might be possible if the goal remained fixed but you and I both understand that the goal/deliverables of nearly all projects are adapted as they move forward. If we forget to pass those changes along to those who are doing the work, they end up working toward a goal that no longer exists; they tend to become demotivated and less productive. This is one of the more compelling reasons for you to be a walking, breathing scoreboard, And even if the goal remains fixed and they do know where they stand, your employees want assurance that you agree with their assessment of where they stand in relation to the goal.
When employees know where they stand, they get more motivated. And here’s the interesting part: they get more motivated even if they find out they’re behind. If they’re on track, it feels good and they want to do more. When they know they’re behind, they become more determined to catch up. Could there be a better reason to keep them informed of the status?
Employee Engagement (and leaders are employees, too) is all about having opportunities every day to use your creativity. When you and your team know where you stand in relation to your goals you know where your creativity is most needed, you become more engaged as you apply it.
If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going…
…Any Road Will Get You There
In my last blog (see below) I asked if you know where you’re taking your team and whether your team is clear about the destination. We identified four key action components of leading your team:
- You know and completely understand what the team destination/goal is
- You clearly communicate that destination to your team,
- You solicit their input for how to get there, and
- You are a walking, breathing scoreboard!
Before we can tackle each of the four components above I asked you to complete some pre-work. If you didn’t do it, take some time now to complete it:
- Identify the destination/goal to which you are leading your team
- Why are you leading them there?
- How does your destination/goal fit into the larger organization’s destination/goal?
- How does it fit in with the overall Mission/Vision of the organization?
Today we’re going to talk about the first component:
Know and completely understand what the team destination/ goal is.
This might seems obvious and yet often, when you try and articulate it, it becomes confusing. Did you discover that to be true when you did the pre-work?
Here’s why. Let’s take the example of a Customer Service Department. The goal, of course, is to provide a level of service that results in satisfied customers. But what’s the final destination? How do you know when you’re there?
The final destination for any Customer Service Department is 100% customer satisfaction. And that can be frustrating because, based on human nature, it seems impossible. Nevertheless, that’s where any Customer Service Manager worth her salt is leading her department.
Unrealistic? Sure it is but that’s the thing about destinations in the business world. They ARE unrealistic. Who could have envisioned Facebook, Apple or Amazon? Could our great-grandparents have imagined flying to Europe let alone the moon? Well, someone did and today the impossible becoming reality is no longer surprising.
So wherever you are leading your team, understand that if the destination is easily reached, it’s not challenging enough for them to become engaged in its achievement. Remember, Employee Engagement is about your team having opportunities every day to use the creative parts of their minds. Our creative minds kick in when we have problems to solve, not when we are tasked with maintaining the status quo. Create a very big challenge for your team and watch them flourish.
Where the hell are we going?
Does your team know where you’re taking them? Are you sure? One way to figure it out is to ask yourself, “What am I leading them toward? What’s the destination?” If you don’t know the answers right off the top of your head, think how confused your team is!
Imagine trying to coach a team to win a new game you’ve invented without telling them the rules or the objective. In other words, without telling them how to win!
One reason Employee Engagement is so low (30% according to Gallup) is that we have turned into robots. We show up at work each day, do what we assume are the priorities and have no sense of whether we are moving closer to the team goal or further away – either because we’re not sure what the goal IS or we don’t see how our work supports it!
Just showing up and working is not a big enough game for your team and that’s why they are disengaged.
For too many employees, the daily goal is to get through the day without showing up on anyone’s radar screen. They do enough of the job to stay out of trouble but leave their inspiration and passion at home.
So what’s the answer? First, it’s important that:
- You know and completely understand what the team destination/goal is,
- You clearly communicate it to your team,
- You solicit their input for how to get there, and
- You are a walking, breathing scoreboard!
Over the next few weeks, we will take these one by one. For now, there is pre-work to do:
- Identify the destination/goal to which you are leading your team
- Why are you leading them there?
- How does your destination/goal fit into the larger organization’s destination/goal?
- How does it fit in with the overall Mission/Vision of the organization?
Your team is a reflection of your engagement. If you’re floundering, they will flounder. If you’re clear about where you’re taking them, they’ll be clear. If you’re engaged, they’re engaged.
Please don’t mistake engagement for working hard. In fact, when you are fully engaged in the work, it doesn’t feel hard at all. Engagement is about continually seeking ways to improve the end product, developing processes to achieve results faster and/or better, and growing your own skill set and knowledge base.
In short, Employee Engagement is about using the creative part of your mind every day. Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore ways for you to do that and to encourage your team to do the same.