The employee morale index
With all this talk about the (hopefully) improving economy and consumer confidence, and employment numbers as a lagging indicator…I’d be interested in seeing a national employee morale index and the relationship between morale and a nation’s GDP. Is one predictive of the other? How tight is the correlation? And of course trying to design an objective measure of national employee morale would be the really fun part. (It looks like there have been attempts, and there’s the Consumer Sentiment Index, which sounds similar but isn’t directly related to employment. Let me know if you’re familiar with something along these lines.)
Doing so might also provide evidence that brand strategy can have a significant impact on employee morale. Not because agencies can create corny “you can do it” campaigns to get employees excited about making an extra cold call or working through lunch, but because focus and clarity are at the heart of brand strategy—and employees need (and deserve) both from their leaders when the going gets tough.
Funny that Dilbert got me thinking about all that. Thanks to Dad for forwarding it my way:
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Hahaha…PvW is back, and angry! Thanks for the link to the FT article. Very appropriate.
The case I’m trying to make is for companies whose strong brands not only make them desirable to customers, but also potential and even existing employees. I’m thinking of things like Google’s ad campaign directed at job seekers and Crispin Porter’s famous employee handbook. These are companies that stand for ideas or personalities that—when credibly and consistently supported—can inspire employees.
Блог очень качественный. Вам награду бы за него или просто почетный орден. =)
Yahoo! Babel Fish translates Makseam’s comment as: “[Blog] is very qualitative. To you reward for it or simply honorable order. =)”
Thanks?
Related: http://apps.facebook.com/usa_gnh/
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Sarkozy recently announced that France, regularly despised and derided for its approach to work-life balance, is now measuring ‘happiness’ as a relative indicator within its GDP index. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1af2194c-a12f-11de-a88d-00144feabdc0,s01=1.html
How very droll to us in the US, who have become enslaved to and engrained with the imprisoning notion that if we’re lucky, we might have healthcare and/or some semblance of retirement if we all work 80 hours a week and increase “productivity”– even as we’re told daily in no un-Orwellian terms that we all live in the “greatest country on earth”. Thank you sir, may we have another.
A brief ad hoc review of my fellow 40 employees and numerous compadres and clients and I suddenly feel togetherness. In the collective corporate misery. No matter what ‘brand strategy’ has been adopted, few working brain stems experience anything but threats as central motivation tool. Branding = a white hot poker up one’s ass.
In large part, corporate ‘brand strategy’ within companies has become seen as akin to green-washing. It’s implemented for topical effects having nothing to do with employees, except to add additional complexity, responsibility and requirement. Add to that the fact that few if any corporations and corporate managers, especially at this time, actually believe that happy employees make more efficient, effective and loyal employees. And if they do, they have few if any resources to manage to such a notion while being grilled on the bottom line.
We are a nation still fully committed to and grounded in Puritanical, tyrannical assembly-line mentalities and roots. Thank you Henry Ford. Old habits die hard even as evidence to the contrary abounds averywhere.
Branding for improving employee morale? Surely a semantic error. Hogwash.