Tuesday, August 28, 2012

What Your Employees Secretly Want From You

Google is cutting edge management, right?  Well, for most of its history, Google prioritized in-depth technical expertise as the most important quality in a manager. They thought that the best leaders left their people alone, and that their primary function was to support technical problems when people got stuck.

Ah, but then came data.  A firm was brought in to conduct in-depth employee surveys, focus groups and interviews.  The results were shocking for the tech heads.  When the chiefs at Google examined what employees valued most in a manager, technical expertise ranked dead last.   Far outpacing techy knowledge, staff valued characteristics such as emotional stability (staying even-keeled), asking good questions, taking time to meet with staff and caring about employees’ careers.

In the end, Google found that managers who did these things led top-performing teams and had the happiest employees and least turnover (and remember, turnover is a HUGE hidden expense). So Google made changes in how it selects and coaches managers, devoting particular effort to improving its worst managers.The result, for the first time in many years Google beats Facebook in employee satisfaction.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

yup on your post. and...(just a hunch here and what i try to do). since i work in a helping field and my staff is all female, i try to emphasize self-care also. they go home and take care of people, come to work and take care of people and it is hard. so, i try to give them opportunities to take some quiet time, go to the gym, etc. and let them know that part of my job is to help them to their job and to feel joyful about their work.

Anonymous said...

I'd say one big difference between 1980s and today is that staff want much more help dealing *emotionally* with other staff. Some times I feel like a marriage counselor

CMC said...

Anyone else experience the demand for flex-time? All my management staff demand it, which makes the line staff want it too. But line staff have to be here 8:30-5 to handle phones/customers. It's creating tension