Commentary: What kind of experience do you have when you go to work every day?
On the surface, it may seem unimportant, but think of the time you spend keeping your nose to the grindstone for the sake of family, quality of life and your future.
Work can grind on your psyche, especially when you feel as if you’re just another cog in the wheel doing your job without much of a voice in getting results, or in the process of making things happen.
Considering the heavy concentration of technology, aerospace, defense, logistics and industrial companies based around Southwestern New Mexico, it is a very important question, because the further we progress into this era of knowledge workers that more and more companies depend on, the more it matters for employees to feel a sense of purpose, meaning, trust and belonging at work.
Chances are, if you’re a relationship manager, an engineer, a systems expert, a financial wiz, a product developer, a retail sales representative or some other kind of knowledge worker, and company gives you a ‘seat at the table,’ you’re more likely to be more engaged on the job.
Author Rex Miller promotes something called the ‘employee leadership stakeholder model’ in his new book, “Change Your Space, Change Your Culture.” While the book is focused on how work places and work spaces can improve the employee experience, it also emphasizes the critical importance of ‘thinking space’ over ‘office space.’ Workplace renovations are otherwise meaningless.
Companies that empower their people to think for themselves and express their viewpoints, as they both relate to the mission and culture of the enterprise, are fast becoming more innovative, competitive and profitable.
I call them “Meta-Companies” for their determination to rise above and beyond the worn-out management styles of an industrial era that ended last century. They include new-economy companies like Google, but they also involve old-line industrial interests like Cummins Diesel.
Cummins avoided its own demise, as well as reversing the downfall of its home town of Columbus, Indiana. By deploying a community leadership model bringing all stakeholder interests together, Cummins restored its own global competitiveness on the diesel engine market, at the same time revitalizing the entire community of Columbus. Inclusion was a key.
But the adoption rate of the employee stakeholder model is slow, as the “outrageous realities” of today’s employee experience still show, as summarized by Miller:
- More than 70 percent of the workforce either hates their job or are just going through the motions
- Half of all office space is wasted
- The number of people who suffer chronic disorders – caused or exacerbated by the workplace – is alarming and exorbitantly expensive.
I was part of this research, and when our team, “The Case4Space,” connected these dots, we uttered a collective visceral groan – “Oh my God!”
These and other data tell me that companies should measure the quality of life per square foot of workspace and not simply total cost or revenue per square foot. Humanize this metric!
Access to natural light and air, the use of healthy materials, work space redesign, management styles and other factors all add up.
You can understand Miller’s reaction when he overlays the typical corporate budget against the 70 percent of disengaged workers. Companies spend more than four-fifths (82 percent) of their annual costs on their people, and still nearly three in four employees is disaffected, disconnected and disengaged on the job.
On the other hand, at most they typically invest less than 10 percent of their budgets on the design, operation and maintenance of their facilities.
That’s not to say that simply investing in workplace retrofits or redesigns will change a company’s culture. With low employee engagement levels comes another challenge that belies newer or more open and flexible workspaces: shadow cultures.
‘There’s nothing worse than an employee who quits and stays at the same time.’
A shadow culture undermines the presumed main culture of a company. Until companies address the 20 percent of employees who are actually toxic, people whom Miller describes as CAVE Dwellers (constantly against virtually everything), all of the workspace renovation in the world won’t help much improve productivity.
In this regard, a human resources executive tells me, “There’s nothing worse than an employee who quits and stays at the time.”
That’s a good reason to look for employers who offer a voice in the way things get done and how results are gained. Management style counts for a lot, especially if you’re on the job market or thinking about looking for a better place to work; so long as you’re ready to play to your strengths!
Giving you some measure of choice in how you work matters, too. Companies that understand and provide balance between heads-down work, collaborative or team work, social spaces and learning spaces are good targets for job seekers hoping to find a more positive day-to-day work experience.
The command-and-control style of management does not fit today’s knowledge work setting, so if you’re more comfortable with an employer who gives you voice and choice, vote with your feet! That’s because, when it’s all said and done, good companies and good employees want to add and gain more value to and from our enterprises and our lives.
Letting go of, or escaping, traditional, top-down, hierarchical ways is not only freeing, a company’s survival and your personal fulfillment can depend on it.
Click below to see some of “Best Places to Work” in New Mexico:
http://www.topworkplaces.com/frontend.php/regional-list/list/abqjournal
About the Author
Richard Kadzis is a researcher and journalist who focuses on workplace, environmental, political, urban, economic and other social issues. He is a former New England correspondent for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and former Associate News Director of WBUR-FM, an NPR member station at Boston University. He resides in Las Cruces, NM.