Happy Employee

1992: Corporate culture

The oldest and probably best-known study on the subject is already 29 years old and was conducted by John Kotter and James Heskett. In "Corporate Culture and Performance", they state that companies with strong corporate cultures and empowered employees perform better than others. In their research, Kotter and Heskett were able to prove that corporate culture has a significant influence on the long-term success of a company^.1

2003: Passion & conviction

Raj Sisodia, Jagh Seth and David B. Wolf take a different approach: passion. The best companies are driven by passion and conviction, not money. They help all stakeholders to flourish. Such companies, which the authors call "Firms of Endearment", would improve the world through their actions and benefit from it^.2

The companies analysed in the book have outperformed the S&P 500 14 times over 15 years. Their success is based on 8 rules that change a company from the inside out. These include^:2

• A high performing company is based on love.
• Help people find their need for self-realisation.
• Create a happy place to work.
• Create relationships that are truly reciprocal.
• Create a company that is eagerly anticipated by the community^.2

2006: Self-determination & trust

In the Netherlands, just such an organisation had developed independently in 2006. State care for the elderly and sick was optimised to such an extent that carers had to work to a strict schedule and were no longer allowed to take time for customers. The situation was unsatisfactory for customers and carers alike. Jos de Blok, one of the carers, quit his job and founded Buurtzorg. A company that consists of small teams and does without management. All tasks are shared between the carers. They take more time for their customers and help them to make contact with neighbours, friends and families. In this way, the carers support the customers to become as independent as possible. Buurtzorg is a success story:

• 2/3 of home carers from the Netherlands now work in one of Buurtzorg's small teams. The company has over 9,000 employees.
• Their concept works: The carers only need 40% of the hours prescribed by doctors and emergency admissions have been reduced by 30%.
• The company with 9,000 employees has a head office with just 28 employees. Everyone manages themselves and no one has a direct line manager^.3

Buurtzorg not only fulfils all the rules defined by Sisodia, Seth and Wolf in "Firms of Endearment", but also follows a principle that Kotter and Heskett researched in the 1990s: A company must focus on the needs of customers, employees and stakeholders in order to be successful^.1

Frederic Laloux, the author of "Reinventing Organizations", attributes Buurtzorg's success in large part to the self-managing organisational culture and supports his theory with many other success stories^.3 This approach inspires us: employees should decide for themselves which methods and tools they need to do their work well. In HR and management, we should not ask ourselves the question "How can we make our employees' work easier?". We should ask our employees: "How can we make your work easier?".

2019: Corporate success

The trust placed in our employees will pay off in greater satisfaction and commitment. And the fact that satisfied, committed employees contribute to the company's success is shown not only by the studies by Sisodia, Seth and Wolf, but also by a study conducted by Oxford University in 2019. For six months, the employees of a BT switchboard were asked about their satisfaction level: If employees were satisfied, they not only worked faster, but also closed more deals^.4

Sources:

¹ 31.01.2020: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/21e9/5e29ce4e19867ad302b953519d3e683c5aa4.pdf?_ga=2.19999165.442555228.1612004494-1320331934.1612004494

² 31.01.2020: https://www.firmsofendearment.com/

³ Reinventing Organisations, Frederic Laloux, 2016

⁴ 31.01.2020: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-10-24-happy-workers-are-13-more-productive