136. What do employees really want?

Transcript – Episode 136: What do employees really want?

Joe: What employees really want is actually something that most employers aren’t willing to provide. But those that do tend to prosper above all others.

Joe: Welcome back friends to the Boss Better Now podcast sponsored by Boss Hero School where we teach leaders and business owners how to activate employee commitment in today’s everchanging workplace. Now, what do employees really want these days? Maybe you came to this episode, came to this question thinking it was things like money or status or looking for opportunities to work 4 days a week and do the easiest amount of work possible. And fundamentally, it’s just not true. Let’s open this episode this week with the answer first. What employees really want above anything else is to live a joyous, prosperous life. If you want employee commitment, if you want a workforce that joins, that stays long term, that gives it all they’ve got in their interactions with their c with your customers, in the work that they do every day, let this be your true north. What employees want more than anything else is to live a joyous, prosperous life. What does that mean? It means a life with minimal suffering, a life with fulfillment, fulfilling work, fulfilling, creatively, intellectually interesting things that they get to do. They want to be able to spend their time and their effort and their energy on things that matter to them. That is of course relative to their work, but it’s also in their personal lives, their family, their friends, their health, their faith, their community. And if you can engineer an employee experience that provides this, you’ve cracked the code on employee commitment. If we’re going to have this conversation today about what employees really want, let’s never lose sight of the fact that most people just want a life where they can save a little, live a little, and provide for the people around them and live in a manner where they’re not consistently experiencing distress. And if working for you puts them on that path, you’re already well ahead of so many of your competitors in your space. So, how do you do that? Well, let’s talk about minimizing suffering. We know that so many people dread going to work every day because it creates a lot of suffering for them in terms of their workload, in terms of the demands of their work, how they’re treated, and the economics of that job. If you want to minimize suffering so that your employees can live a joyous, prosperous life, we need to be looking at things like compensation, workload, and flexibility around compensation, wages, and benefits. Does what I earn and what my employer provides me create economic distress for me outside of work? People can’t be all-in at work if they’re unable to pay their bills at home. But if my compensation takes away economic distress, if I am struggling to pay for childcare, but then my employer starts to offer a childcare subsidy, I have minimized suffering. We have to look at things like workload. I’m constantly coming to work every day and I’m struggling to keep my head above water because there’s so much to do. If the expectations of what one person can reasonably accomplish are unrealistic, that is creating suffering for me. But if I’m staffing up and I’m dispersing that heavy workload across a larger number of employees, I have minimized suffering for people in my workforce. Flexibility is a key ingredient here, too, because suffering might look like, “I never get to take a vacation. I never get to uh go to my kids’ soccer games or um find a way to go on date nights with my wife or be a part of family functions.” Flexibility means giving people some input over where, when, and how they work. And when you give people some control over some of the circumstances of their work lives, their commitment goes up. they experience less suffering. If you want to crack the code on commitment and really give employees what they really want, it starts with figuring out what are all the ways in which jobs create suffering and how do we minimize that? And if you’re a boss at a level where you have really limited influence over things like compensation and workload and flexibility, then my charge to you is to acknowledge and advocate. Acknowledge openly in your conversations with your employees that yes, you recognize that the economics of the job don’t work for everybody. Yes, the workload is probably heavier than it should be. Yes, it would be ideal if we could give you more flexibility and more input into certain aspects of your work. We have to acknowledge that. That’s an act of empathy. And then we have to advocate for it upwards. We have to be a mirror reflecting to our superiors when we’re leading at the front-line level what it is that people are struggling with and advocate for them to get those experiences to unlock their commitment. Now, after you’ve worked on minimizing suffering, we got to think about that fulfillment p piece. And where does fulfillment come from? It comes from meaningful work. So, we need to be thinking about how we give people a chance to tap into their strengths, do work with purpose, and experience belonging. Strengths are about getting to do what I do best in my work. It turns out that when we operate in our own zones of genius, so to speak, it unleashes our effort. It unleashes our creativity. We tap into what is academically referred to as intrinsic motivation. We try harder. we stay longer when we get to do what we do best. We will also part with more effort when we believe our work matters, when our work has purpose. And so, we have to hear from our leaders and hear from our employers about the ways in which our work makes a difference. We need to get line of sight between the tasks and duties of our jobs and the difference it makes in the lives of others. And we also have to experience belonging. There’s a boatload of research that tells us again and again and again that quite a few people will stay where they are long term and continue working hard simply because they really like the people that they work with and they feel a sense of team and connection, and they know that those people are relying on them. And so that sense of belonging is a key ingredient in what employees really want and what it takes to unlock employee commitment. You will get to a place where you are helping engineer tapping into people’s strengths and giving them a sense of purpose and belonging by the ongoing conversations you have about each one of these things. Are you talking to your direct reports about what they’re good at? Are you noticing it? Are you pointing it out? Are you giving them that feedback? Hey, I noticed you’re really good at deescalating angry customers. That’s something that I don’t know if you’ve ever been taught how to do it, but boy, you’re really good at it. Could you maybe give the rest of the team some advice on how to do that? Well, hey, you’re really good on the computer with design and with organizing information. You’ve got a real gift for that. Is that something you’d like to do more of in your work? Let’s see if we can find ways to make that happen for you. Those kinds of conversations unlock commitment. So, too do the conversations about purpose. Hey, your work really made a difference here. Let me tell you how. Let me give you the specific details because I want to make sure you understand. Those conversations go a heck of a lot further than thank you or good job. The conversations you’re having with your team, too, about belonging matter, about how we treat each other, about how we take care of each other, about the difference that every single person on the team makes in supporting and pitching in and helping one another. And if you’re leading at the front line or at the mid-level, what is most important for you to take away from this conversation is not just having those conversations, but the accountability that comes with it. You have to ensure that your team does not become infected by a toxic person who undermines that sense of belonging, who excludes people, who diminishes their sense of purpose or the belief that they have talent. We’ve all worked for that person who when a new hire-ee comes in after a couple of days pulls that new person aside and says, “Let me tell you how things really work around here.” And then they end up just poisoning the well and telling stories and creating a narrative for that new hire that undermines everything that you’re trying to build. If you’re leading from the front, you have to make sure that you don’t allow those weeds in your garden. You’ve got to pull the weeds in between all of these things of minimizing suffering and thinking about where fulfillment comes from. Be the kind of boss who trusts, coaches, and advocates for your employers. It turns out that how I feel about my boss in the workplace is a critical ingredient in whether I want to be a part of what we’re doing here. A great boss is a key factor in living a joyous and prosperous life because a great boss engineers the conditions that lead to my job being a stable and contributing factor in that joyous and prosperous life. And think about that. The worst boss I ever had was someone who treated me like a number, not like a human being. who didn’t care about my career, who didn’t care about mentoring me, who didn’t care about training me, who talked down to me, who assumed that I should suffer on my way in and pay my dues because that’s what he had to do because no one supported him. No one helped him. He had to just figure it out. And he became convinced that that’s how he earned his way. That that’s where his status came from. That he worked his way up with no help, no support, no feedback. and that that is what hard work looks like. And then that translates into his leadership style. That if you want to succeed here, pal, you’ve got to pay your dues. That’s not leadership. That’s sadism. How well did that person do in the early years of their career? How connected to their employer did they feel? How much did they go above and beyond uh to contribute to what that company was all about or what customers really needed? Yeah, maybe they did it at a certain level, but most people who experience that kind of suffering or difficulty bail out because it’s not realistic to expect them to stay in an environment that treats them like that. On the other hand, the best boss I ever had cared about me as a person first, cared about my life outside of work, cared about my career, cared about my talent, cared about what I was interested in doing, noticed what I was good at, got to know me, got to understand my life outside of work, knew my kids’ names, knew my interests, knew my strengths, knew my talents, knew my hobbies, worked to tweak my job role around the edges to give me the chance to do what I did best. They trusted my insights. They trusted my opinions. It turns out that the best bosses that we have are key contributors to that joyous and prosperous life. And if you take a minute to think about the best and the worst jobs you’ve ever had, I am willing to bet that you would sort your answers into one category, or another based largely on three questions. How did that job fit into your life? How meaningful did you find the work? And what was your boss like? Those three factors, how the job fits into your life, how meaningful you found the work, and what your boss was like, they combine together to create the conditions that dramatically increase the likelihood that an employee is going to give it all they’ve got working for you. Because those conditions lead to a more joyous and prosperous life. get them right and you will have employees who join and stay and care and try. The employers who don’t pay attention to these things are the employers who are constantly dealing with people who are a flight risk. They’re constantly dealing with employee resentment. They’re dealing consistently with employees who are checking out and giving them minimum levels of effort. But the employers who do pay attention to these things, they’re not experiencing a commitment gap. They’re getting effort. They’re getting loyalty. They’re getting longevity. They’re getting outstanding customer experiences. When you engineer for employees the conditions that lead to a joyous, prosperous life, every metric you care about improves, goes in the direction that you want it to. Too often I encounter business owners and leaders who want to operate at a minimum staffing threshold. I want to pay the least amount that I have to pay. give the minimum amount of amount of benefits with the minimum amount of people doing the work and giving them the minimum amount of support that they need and then I’m hoping to be successful. A minimum staffing threshold is a minimum effort and minimum retention plan that leads to minimum results. Employees aren’t an expense. They are an investment. I want to encourage you to operate at a maximum staffing threshold. I want you to pay as high as you can. Give as much support as you possibly can. Hire as many people as you possibly can to disperse that workload because a maximum staffing threshold gets you a maximum effort and maximum retention experience and gives you maximum results. So, there you have it folks. What do employees really want? They want their job to contribute in all the ways that it possibly can to them living a joyous and prosperous life. Do that and you’ll never have to worry about employee commitment again. Well, what do you think? I would love to hear from you. Drop a comment in the box below the video here on YouTube or if you’re listening on your favorite podcasting service, send me an email at boss bettergmail.com. That’s also where you can send your questions that you’d love to see me tackle in a future episode. Thanks for being here. See you next time.

Joe:  Do you need to take your leadership knowledge and skills to the next level, but don’t have time for overstuffed courses or lengthy training programs? Then you want to check out Boss Hero School. This immersive 3-day leadership development experience with me is like getting an MBA in people leadership in just a couple of days. We’re going to teach you the methods and the mindset to create environments where people join, stay, care, and try. For more information, visit bossheroschool.com.