Is a Productive Employee a Happy Employee?

March 10th, 2008 by hragitator | Posted in Employee Relations |

Yesterday, I explored the definition of Human Resources and HR’s role within the company. As a result of that, I concluded that HR should focus it’s time on creating a productive workforce. However, I also hinted that an over-zealous approach to maximizing productivity and minimizing cost can produce some questionable ethical situations. Let’s save most of those for another day, but today, let’s assume that your effectively increasing productivity at your company. Is a productive employee a happy employee?

To hit at the very core of this question, let’s ask a simpler question first. Why does an employee work? Ostensibly, they trade their skills for compensation, which they use to support themselves and their families. This, of course, applies to all workers regardless of the type of work they are doing.

Now, there’s an assumption of a minimal amount of work (productivity) that must be done in order to maintain a job. So, minimally, workers will be as productive as is required to keep their job. However, this doesn’t answer the question about whether a productive employee is a happy employee. All employees should produce something, but that doesn’t guarantee their happiness. I know plenty of unhappy employees.

Let’s now take a closer look at the word productive. In technical terms, labor productivity means “the ratio of a volume measure of output to a volume measure of input”. While excellent for economics analysis, this is virtually useless when assessing the day-to-day activities of the average white-collar employee, since they may be very distant from the actual production of a good. I once had a friend who worked as a contractor testing sales ordering software for a pharmaceutical company. He never saw the sales people, he never saw a lab, he never saw a production facility.

I would suggest this definition of productivity: the extent to which an employee’s activities directly and positively effect the creation or sale of a good or service. Notice I don’t suggest this is directly measurable. Take my contractor friend I just mentioned. If you wanted to quantify the value of his work, you’d have to identify each bug in the software he identified and estimate the value of potential order errors that was deviated by catching the bug. This would be almost impossible and certainly not worthwhile, as it’s not a productive activity in either definition.

What’s your point here, you might ask? Essentially, I’m saying that you have to take a leap of faith that an employee working effectively in the tasks given will be productive. Assuming this, you now need to ask whether or not the tasks given are productive according to the definition I’ve outlined. Much like I suggested yesterday, I don’t think this question is ever asked in business. Corporations have gotten so complex, that the true intention of our being there can be lost. However, if you take the leap of faith and the assumption that the employee is engaged in productive work, then it stands to reason that HR and management should ensure that employees are as efficient and effective as possible in their given activities.

What of happiness, though? A full and complete discussion of happiness is out of the scope of this discussion, but let’s assume for our purposes that a happy employee has the following characteristics:

• They enjoy the work they do
• They enjoy their co-workers presence
• They enjoy working for their boss
• Their environment is safe and fitting to the work they do
• They can see a path for developmental opportunities
• Their needs are adequately met by the pay and benefits given

I think it’s safe to say that if an employee has all of these attributes, they should be happy. I guess that means you are saying that productivity and happiness are not related then, you might say. Well, not quite. The factors above can have a negative effect on the employee (e.g., I hate my boss), but once they’re met, they’re met. None of them will make your employees more than simply happy or content or satisfied.

This means that productivity is a special modifier. In other words, assuming all the basics are met to reach a plateau of happiness, then increased productivity can make the person happier. I would call this the different between job satisfaction and job ecstasy. Most white-collared workers have spent a large portion of their lives training to have the knowledge to do their jobs (college, grad school, professional certifications, etc.), and they want to see the effects of their hard work. Keep in mind they also probably chose their respective field because they like to do it to begin with. So the productivity happiness modifier is “how much am I able to do what I’ve trained to do and enjoy doing.” Just keep in mind it can go the other way as well.

If you wanted to find the true happiness of your employees, you would ask them to rate themselves on a scale from -3 to +3 for the six categories I listed above with -3 being “I hate it” and +3 being “I’m completely satisfied.” Then ask them how productive they are on a scale from 1 to 5 with 1 being “I meet the requirements of the job with ease” and 5 being “I’m doing as much work as I possibly can.” Now add up the scores of the six categories and multiply by the productivity modifier. What you’ll find is that the most unhappy employees are those that have negative scores across the six categories and a high modifier (i.e., I’m unhappy and the work is making it worse) while those with positive scores from the six categories and a high modifier will be your most happy (i.e., I’m happy to have a lot of work, because I like being here to begin with).

I did a quick analysis in Excel here to illustrate my point. Also, please don’t actually ask your employee’s these questions. Not a good idea. I didn’t list an ineffective company, because they go out of business…