Richard Browne Giving Hope Changing Lives Birmingham Social Inclusion Process
Six people Six lives One hope
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Can the shattered walls of
their
cubicles
be glued with
Dr. Chuck’s
solutions?
BY
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U
D
A
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ABSTRACT 4
WHAT I FOUND AND
WHAT OTHERS SHOULD DO
5
OPERATIONAL– BUDGET 22
OPERATIONAL-TARGET
POPULATION
23
OPERATIONAL–
METHODOLOGIES
24
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 29
BIBLIOGRAPHY 30
CONTENT
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4
ABSTRACT
This story revolves around a professor (fictitious) who attempts to solve everyday professional prob‐lems to improve job satisfaction thereby reducing future attrition (a key concern today). However job satisfaction as discovered, is also impacted by overall happiness in life; a large part of which is gov‐erned by several factors beyond the office cubicles. But this does not mean that Companies cannot influence this aspect; professional life and policies adopted by HR departments can impact some of these factors to improve overall happiness; thereby increasing both job satisfaction as well as em‐ployee retention. Research was kick started with secondary data analysis on OECD data concerning happiness and sev‐eral databases of TNS on job satisfaction. This exercise helped to understand job related issues in vari‐ous parts of the world and generate hypothesis to be tested with primary research. A cross‐continental survey was launched in 6 languages targeting white collar workers in OECD countries, India and China. Snowballing, social networks, blog posts and professional forums were used to distribute the survey. 433 responses were collected in 144 hours. Based on survey (& secondary analysis), employment came among top influencers of happiness. Inside the office, job satisfaction was driven most by pay, colleagues and career growth and these were also the aspects where dissatisfaction reigned. Various solutions are suggested to improve satisfaction on these and concepts like horizontal growth are explored for solving career growth problems. Ways for senior management to regain trust are explored. Colleague issues concerning age, nationality, qualifi‐cation are studied while executive education is suggested for solving employee concerns on skill up gradation. Important finds on flexibility, travel, hiring, firing, temporary workers and discrimination are also elaborated. In order to visualize the different issues faced across the globe, six pen portraits have been created and the paper hinges around how the professor, based on the results, recommends actions for organiza‐tions to tackle these issues. While there might be specific companies which already implement some of the recommendations, in the future it is envisaged that a majority of companies will have to implement the recommendations if they want to truly retain their employees.
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In last 24 months, many of my friends, working in different parts of the world, moved to new jobs.
Some changed for obvious reasons; while the others had some new reasons to shift. On a quiet morn‐
ing in April while looking at a financial newspaper, I glanced at company costs associated with em‐
ployee attrition. Retention has become a big issue with Human Resource departments worldwide; just
to give an idea of the problem, British companies lost £42 billion in 2009 due to attrition rate of 10.5%
while in 2010 attrition rate was around 24%, according to a Telegraph article published in October
2010.It prompted me to think about why people switch jobs and what I could do (if I were a Human
Resources‐HR manager) to retain them.
However, being in my first corporate job, I wasn’t sure if I could answer the questions myself. Thus,
research was undertaken with the sole focus of understanding what organizations are currently doing
and what they need to do more in the future to make life (professional and personal) better for em‐
ployees which in turn will enhance employee retention rates.
To understand and gain insights on the phenomenon of attrition, analysis was carried out on available
macroeconomic data ranging across happiness and factors affecting satisfaction. Based on this, hy‐
pothesis were generated which were validated through primary research. For bringing core issues to
life, 6 different pen‐portraits were created to visualize different problems faced by employees in differ‐
ent parts of the world. Before we move on to findings, lets acquaint ourselves with six of my pen‐
portraits( treated as real‐life friends from here on) and will talk about them (in detail) as we progress
through the paper.
1) Hatsuto Morioko. Works as a design engineer in a tech company in Tokyo, Japan.
2) Marta Stewart. Consultant in a Management Consulting firm in London,UK.
ALL THAT NEEDS TO BE TOLD
3) Alex Zhang. Recently got a job in Hong Kong
for a Retail giant.
4) Adam Payson. Financial Analyst for a company
based in New York City, NY, USA
5) Prakash Patel. Media Manager for a publish‐
ing company in Mumbai, India
6) Radha Singh. Corporate Lawyer in Bangalore,
India
The HOPE‐ Dr. Chuck‐ Professor at UCLA, Los Angeles‐
California, USA; does research on HR policies worldwide and
consults several Fortune 500 companies regarding HR policies.
And is an avid Tweeter. (This fictitious character has been cre‐
ated for delivery of recommendations).
6
Secondary data used included OECD data on Positive Wellbeing Index (called Positive Index here),
Google world data, data from Statistical organizations of India and China along with Internal database
obtained from various TNS departments on employee satisfaction.
Around 433 responses were collected in the primary survey with respondents from India, US and China
representing close to 60% of the sample. There was a 63‐37%(M‐F) gender split and sample contained
respondents having Post Graduate degree(52%), Graduate degree(42%) and PhD(5%).
Focusing on happiness for the moment before
moving on to professional aspects, Secondary
data analysis on OECD data showed that Positive
Wellbeing Index( PI defined as happiness experi‐
enced by respondents‐yearly average) was influ‐
enced by attributes* (called subtle attributes
here) like ‘Did something unique’‐ 37%, Enjoy‐
ment‐ 27%, Respect‐19%, Well Rested‐17%,
‘Proud of something you did’‐ 2% and Choose
how to spend time‐2%. (Percentages give the
amount of contribution to happiness). Refer ap‐
pendix‐A.
In the survey conducted, when I asked about
events that can make you feel good on any day
(Positive Index), ‘Learnt or did something
unique’ and ‘Enjoyed with loved ones’ appeared
in top followed by ‘Proud of something I did’ and
‘Treated with respect’. Survey results affirmed
our confidence in prior analysis.
When asked about work life balance, 52% of respondents were
satisfied while 30% were not. Investigating the impact of out‐
side life on work life, 62% believed that life outside office af‐
fected their work life while another 20% were neutral on this.
50% of respondents said that outside life was better than office
life while 37% were neutral on this. Hence half of the sample’s
neutral or disagreement with statement indicates that profes‐
sional life also contributes to their happiness. Taking this for‐
ward, I tried to find out as to how much professional life af‐
fected happiness in totality.
Moving further………...
* Contribution derived using Kruskals Analysis
Fig1. Subtle attributes contributing to PI
7
OFFICE LIFE
OVERALL HAPPINESS
Fig.2– Does Office Life affect Overall Happiness?
8
When Survey respondents were asked to rate between the above mentioned attributes, surprisingly
health came out as the most important attribute followed by Professional life and Financial Wellbeing.
Analysis on OECD data had shown health as the 3rd most important factor affecting happiness. A possi‐
ble reason could be that my sample comprised of predominantly a younger population(21‐30: the fu‐
ture worker) who being in the middle to upper strata of society, have moved beyond the insecurity of
basic amenities of financial wealth and professional life and while these are important for happiness,
life is beyond that.
Secondary data analysis on OECD data also showed that Positive Index was being affected by Employ‐ment‐ 38%, Financial Health‐ 22%, Life(Health)‐18%, Work and Leisure‐ 14%, Support System‐ 3%, Law and Order‐ 2%, Education‐0.5%. (Driver Analysis used to find the contribution was Bayesian Belief net‐works. Precision of prediction‐ 83%). Refer Appendix‐B
Fig.3. Tangible attributes affecting Overall Happiness (PI)
9
Dr. Chuck’s Key takeout‐ Professional life being the second most important factor affecting overall
happiness and hence influencing factors like say health which is linked with professional benefits
(insurance, wellness programs etc), profession can increase influence of its impact on overall happi‐
ness. Hence HR departments should strive to contribute (indirectly) to overall happiness of their em‐
ployee.
BACK TO OFFICE!! Based on driver analysis on cross‐continental internal TNS data on employee satisfaction, I found that
important attributes contributing to Job Satisfaction Index are Colleague Co‐operation, Salary, Pride in
work, Training and Benefits.*
I did further breakdown (secondary analysis) on the basis of attributes affecting job satisfaction and
found the following‐
• Pay is a motivator in EU and Asia and both these continents have employees who are not satisfied
with their salaries.
• Asians and Europeans believe that honest communication from their company’s management is a
big motivator but are dissatisfied on this factor.
• Asians and Europeans consider growth and development as a big motivator but are dissatisfied on
this factor.
Fig.4. Effect of Employment
* Refer to Appendix C.
10
• In Europe, change is normally viewed in a negative light.
• Australians are most satisfied with Safety on their workplace; give importance to clarity on client’s
needs and are satisfied with this process. They have a higher satisfaction with their supervisor.
• Independence of work is a big motivator for European workers and they are satisfied on this aspect
compared to the rest of the world. Health, Safety and Adequate time allotted to do designated
work are Hygiene factors for European workers. While they are satisfied on Health and Safety they
are dissatisfied on the latter.
• In Asia, safety is a hygiene factor and they are satisfied to a greater extent.
• Asians are satisfied with the extent of concern for quality by their management as well as with the
processes being used to make their work flow faster.
• Colleague support is a big motivator for Asians and they seem to be satisfied on this aspect.
Hatsuto Morioko works as a design engineer in a big tech‐
nology company based in Tokyo. Hatsuto is overworked,
clocking almost 12‐14 hours every day and is not even com‐
plaining. While I was working on this project, I questioned
myself that, is Hatsuto one of the few work‐committed
Japanese employees or is he one of many; isn’t this over‐
work affecting his overall happiness in life?
HATSUTO
MORIOKO
Analysis across regions revealed differences and common themes. Lets look at dif‐
ferences first. THROUGH OUR PEN PORTRAITS…
Fig.5. Job Satisfaction Index
11
Rich western countries score low on rest while Japan though being in the same category scores high on
it. But vice versa is seen on enjoyment. This confirmed belief that Japan has serious work‐life problems
and was further strengthened by WHO papers showing work‐life problems along with other issues like
declining birth rates, long working hours and detached personal life. Hence, Hatsuto is not an odd man
out. It’s a problem grappling Japanese work place(and society) in totality.
DR. Chuck tweets, “ Japanese workers need to spend more time on leisure and with their families
even on weekdays. Work‐life balance needs to be promoted by HR departments in Japan. Organize
seminars to promote work‐life balance, give access to work‐life consultants and give greater flexibil‐
ity options; maternity concerns need to be addressed (to tackle declining growth rate) in addition to
giving women maternity related flexibility options and assurance of continued job growth after ma‐
ternity leaves.”.
According to BBC, 1/3rd of British population has sleep problems resulting in daytime sleepiness and
lack of freshness. Our cross‐continental analysis also revealed dissatisfaction on time allocated for
given work. Dr. Chuck tweets, ”Marta needs to have an honest discussion with her supervisor about
time allocated to do the work. She also needs to consult work‐life consultant and discuss her sleep
patterns.”
MARTA STEWART
Marta is always unhappy and attributes her un‐
happiness to work related problems; wants to
leave her present job. She says that she is over‐
worked, gets deadlines difficult to meet, ends up
burning the mid night oil and remains irritated
day long. She just wants to get out of this job.
12
Survey Respondents place salary and colleagues as top influencers on job satisfaction; career growth
also figured out as an important factor. This affirmed our secondary data analysis. When asked about
their satisfaction on these different factors, salary and benefits came out as the one with least satisfac‐
tion ratings and highest dissatisfaction. Salary being a very important factor impacting satisfaction, low
ratings is a concern. Career growth (another important factor) also showed lower satisfaction ratings
and higher dissatisfaction. There is dissatisfaction with senior management and job related training.
Though respondents were satisfied with their colleagues, company’s culture showed low satisfaction
ratings. Dr. Chucks tweets, “Team chemistry is important; but it’s the company’s culture that influ‐
ences how colleagues gel with each other. Often teamwork (colleagues) is defined as an influencing
factor in job satisfaction but it’s the company culture that influences teamwork. Company’s culture in
turn can be managed and moulded (if need arises) which can influence team chemistry and hence
leading to overall satisfaction. “
COLLEAGUES
SENIOR MANAGEMENT
BENEFITS(PERKS)
SAFETY ON JOB
CAREER GROWTH
JOB RELATED TRAINING
COMPANY CULTURE
SUPERVISOR
PAY (SALARY)
INSIDE THE OFFICE Now moving on to some common themes..
SATISFACTION INFLUENCERS
DIS‐SATISFIED SATISFIED
Fig.6. Factors affecting Job Satisfaction. Shown here are percentage of respondents satisfied (right) or dissatisfied (left) on these attributes.
* For survey questions, refer to Appendix D
13
Looking at factors affecting everyday satisfaction( as shown in the picture below), communication by
company and involvement of employees in decisions concerning them are seen to be causing dissatis‐
faction among respondents, which can be further linked to their dissatisfaction with senior manage‐
ment as seen before. There is infrastructure related dissatisfaction with office facilities which can be
attributed to influence of respondents from developing economies on sample. Another important area
of concern is handling of criticism which got lowest satisfaction and highest dissatisfaction ratings.
There was satisfaction on issues like‐ diversity, respect for creativity, employee respect, emphasis on
quality, use of skills and internet usage policies. Dr. Chuck tweets,” Senior management needs to get
back the trust. Infrastructure related issues are specific to developing economies and will only be
solved as they mature. Even bigger concern is on handling of criticism for which proper trustworthy
HR policies need to be established. Some methods that can be useful here can be listed as choosing
proper place and time to criticize, clear indication of expected change and patience for the change to
happen. “
EVERYDAY SATISFACTION
Fig.7. Factors affecting day-to-day experience at your job. Factors linked with red smiley are the ones on which respondents are dissatisfied while those in yellow are the ones with which they are satisfied.
14
Moving on to company and culture related issues, while 77% of respondents were proud of their com‐
pany and some were not; 88% of this minority would change to a company with better image, if situa‐
tion arises. This indicates the importance of company’s strength in market and its brand image. Brand
image of company goes beyond customers. Dr. Chuck tweets, “ It’s important to like the product you
are making or selling!
Only 59% of people believed that their work would make world a better place indicating a need for
companies to project the wider impact of their work which in turn could add pride that affects job
satisfaction. 78% of employees feel need for ethics training while 40% need open door policy. Dr.
Chuck tweets, “Both stem from the dissatisfaction with senior management after 2008. Many people
cited the 2008 debacle where senior management was let off with golden parachutes while lower
staff had to suffer. Adding ethics training and increasing exposure of senior management to employ‐
ees will reduce the mistrust of Senior Management. “When asked about company sponsored events,
office parties were the most commonly organized events(69%) while stress meetings appeared to be a
fairly new concept for many. 78% of respondents want more brainstorming and leadership building
events along with office parties. Dr. Chuck tweets, “Leadership events can be extremely helpful as it
gives employees a look at tomorrow’s possible managers and hence can create a greater trust with
future management.
ALEX ZHANG Talking about Alex, a few months back, he took up a lucra‐
tive job in a North European Country as a Marketing man‐
ager for a Retail chain. A Young Ivy League grad hired to lead
a bunch of native workers (some young, some elder to him).
He left the job in 4 months. He attributes his failure to the
country’s work culture. Was this the reason or was there
some fault on Alex’ side? Let’s look into issues concerning
colleagues.
While it’s obvious that majority(91%) would like to consider themselves sincere to the colleagues, sin‐
cerity ratings fell down by 20% when asked about sincerity towards them. 89% of respondents were
comfortable working with multinational colleagues but 80% disliked having a supervisor of another
country. This poses a great challenge to countries having talent crunch which need foreigners for vari‐
ous positions. A sense of insecurity in the minds of native workers leads to mistrust and dislike, apart
from differences in accent and work patterns. Dr. Chuck tweets, ”Hiring companies need to explain
the need for hiring foreign workers with honest reasons while foreign workers (like Alex) need to ac‐
custom themselves to new culture and respect intricacies of new place. “
COMPANY AND CULTURE
COLLEAGUES
15
Age does not seem to be a concern between colleagues except
when your supervisor has counted lesser birthdays than you.
This poses a concern as the coming decade might observe tal‐
ented youngsters (like Alex) rising the corporate ladder faster
and leading elder employees (which used to be difficult in past
due to established hierarchies of career growth). Dr. Chuck
tweets, “In such cases, onus lies on young managers (like
Alex) to respect age differences and avoid going into age con‐
flicts. Similar advice holds for supervisors with lesser educa‐
tion.” 52% of respondents showed interest in having forums
providing them access to network with their colleagues world‐
wide. Dr. Chuck tweets, “Usage of such forums needs to be
emphasized further by HR departments as it not only eases
off collaboration issues but also creates a closely knit social
structure which can help retain employees.”
50% of respondents believed that education helped them succeed in their job while 32% were neutral.
91% felt need to update their professional skills. This indicates that white collar workers are getting
aware of the need to update. 69% said that they had indicated to their companies their desire to up‐
date. Yet when asked if they would like to go to college to update their skills, only 38% showed inter‐
est while 28% were unclear. On the other side 77% were interested in attending seminars and other
short duration learning events. 50% of respondents who had attended some kind of seminar found
them useful in daily work. This indicates that employers need short doses of skill update and not the
longer ones like a college degree. Dr. Chuck tweets, “This raises the need for Executive programs (that
have been on rapid rise lately) and HR departments need to tap in on this trend. A tie up with univer‐
sity can also be helpful for companies who wish to keep their employees updated.” Dr. Chuck himself
has a tie‐up with several Fortune 500 companies.
EDUCATION AND FLEXIBILITY
16
Employees can also get on‐job skill updating in innovative techniques by involving academicians in
live projects where academicians bring in their innovative ideas and employees learn on job. 78% of
respondents also expressed need for formal training program to new employees hence giving the
impetus to introduce such programs for companies that do not have it and to improve it for compa‐
nies which have such programs. This opinion may have been felt due to a gap between college educa‐
tion and the skills needed at work (observed in countries like India and China).
55% were fine with their work related travel while 21% were neutral. There was no clear opinion on
use of teleconferencing as 31% liked this option and equal number disliked it while others remained
neutral. Possible reason can be technical glitches that make teleconferencing an unpleasant option or
another possible reason can be the belief that meeting in person is more effective than the virtual
ones. Moreover, work related travel gives many employees a chance to explore new places which they
don’t experience via teleconferencing. Dr. Chuck suggests dual usage of physical travel and telecon‐
ferencing, saving money while also giving employees a chance to interact in real.
Having personally lived through the bad times of 2008, I was interested in finding effect of country’s
economic situation on employee’s work mentality. Around 50% of respondents believed that employ‐
ment situation affected their job. This appears to be less and possible reason can be improvement of
economy in US and presence of several respondents from non‐financial background (worst hit by 2008
crisis); plus a higher proportion of respondents from India and China, where there is optimism due to
economic growth.
Flexibility has been gath‐
ering a lot of interest
lately and 84% of re‐
spondents prefer flexi‐
ble working hours while
70% are ready to adjust
their time for project
needs. Dr. Chuck calls
this as a mutual give
and take. Important
finding for companies
which do not believe in
flexibility or despite be‐
ing in rule book don’t
enact it.
EMPLOYMENT
17
ADAM
PAYSON
was let off as the company could not afford him. Had I been the HR man‐
ager, could I have retained a talented guy like him while still not impacting
the balance sheet.
Talking about hiring and firing, one person who is
always on top of my mind is Adam Payson. Adam
recently got a job in a financial company dealing in
currency trading. He had been unemployed for last
18 months. He worked for a big financial giant that
fired him during 2008 debacle. An extremely tal‐
ented and successful analyst from SMU, Dallas, TX
50% of respondents were satisfied with their company’s hiring policies and 61% wanted to be a part of
the process by acknowledging the need for Employee referral programs. Dr. Chuck tweets, “Employees
want to have a say in who joins their company; colleagues affect their overall satisfaction and hence
need to be facilitated by HR dept.” On the other side, 56% were neutral on their company’s firing poli‐
cies. This response is not shocking, given that there is optimism on American economy’s revival and
Indian/Chinese companies have not yet adopted hire/fire policies to the extent adopted by the west.
Dr. Chuck tweets, “Firing needs to be explained to employee (like Adam) with an honest discussion
(honest exit interviews). An interesting solution that has been used by several companies is to send
their employees for say a 6 month partial paid leave for social work (instead of firing them).” IT gi‐
ants like Accenture and Infosys had used this solution in 2008.
40% of respondents showed their readiness for this option while 33% might consider this. This option
can help companies retain their talent (like Adam) during downturn; can also enhance its social
brand equity. Because firing affects employee morale and productivity, some of the ways to avoid
firing can be‐ reduction in salaries, allowing employees to work part‐time in non‐competitive indus‐
tries, cutting on benefits and reducing their hours of work or sharing employees between depart‐
ments.
On talking with several HR consultants, need
for temporary or project based workers
came out in discussions. But 63% of respon‐
dents rejected this option which is obvious
given the lesser security this option holds.
Yet with changing economies and profits
pinching companies, this option is becoming
a hard necessity to swallow. Dr. Chuck’s re‐
search reveals that Companies need to in‐
crease the monetary incentives given to
temporary employees to make this option
worth a look. Companies do not have to
18
PRAKASH
PATEL
A week back, I saw an interesting article in a
magazine which reminded me of Prakash Patel.
He recently changed his job. He wanted to be a
Senior manager after being manager for last 2
years but his organization was not giving him
growth. He is an extremely dynamic and per‐
formance oriented guy. Prakash is a big loss for
any company. But what can HR dept do when
they are unable to give vertical growth? Career
growth is an important factor affecting satisfaction and has very low
satisfaction ratings. There are operational issues in getting everyone
promoted at equal rates. Dr Chuck tweets, “instead of vertical
growth, horizontal growth should also be considered in which employees gain exposure to various
departments leading to increase in their overall knowledge about company’s operations.” This eases
off the pressure of vertical growth while gives employees’ perspectives on different departments
which can help them collaborate better in future projects. 47% of respondents showed interest in this
option while 38% will consider.
65% of respondents also approved of having an internal job/project board where they can apply for
jobs/projects that interest them. Internal job boards can also help in facilitating horizontal move‐
ments; hence easing offs the pressure to give vertical growth. Non‐managerial staff can also be given
options to venture in managerial roles; hence opening up new frontiers for them while also giving
them exposure to challenges faced by management.
With changing economies, job related relocations have become a reality. 37% were ready to relocate
to another city while 44% were ready to relocate to another country. Because a large proportion of the
sample was of the age group 21‐30, many of whom may not be married or with kids, acceptance for
relocation is understandable. Yet on looking at other age groups, survey respondents were not so clear
and were more inclined to be in either NO or May be category. Dr Chuck tweets,” Companies can offer
options like telecommute and flexible day presence. In addition to relocation assistance, they can
also give them a temporary project at new place, see their comfort levels and then ask them to relo‐
cate accordingly. “
give employees long term benefits like pension funds, insurance etc which leads to massive savings. Yet
there are several legal issues involving this option and hence will take time to become a norm and be
accepted by mainstream. Dr. Chuck tweets,” Yet with companies trying to optimize on everything,
temporary workers seem to be the next frontier to bet on. “
19
Pay and benefits came out to be the most important attribute and one
with the lowest satisfaction ratings. 68% of respondents believed that
their salary is sufficient to fulfill their basic needs but not beyond that.
Another point studied was‐ does being happy on job override pay and
while equal number of people agreed and disagreed, 50% were unable
to decide. This affirms our previous finding that happiness/enjoyment
on job is very important. 40% of respondents showed interest in vari‐
Dr. Chuck tweets, “Apart from variable pay/bonus, various methods can be
used to link pay with performance. Another option that can be introduced
is that of a point based tier/stage system (like this videogame or a layered
cake shown here with various stages‐which is customizable by employee’s
preference). Employee needs to gain certain number of points based on
performance to reach these tiers and maintain on that tier; result of which
able pay while 38% showed interest to consider this option. Dr. Chuck tweets, “HR depts. should pro‐
mote this option with greater interest given that respondents are ready to take risk on pay while still
enjoying safety of having a job. This option can also be used when companies are unable to give ca‐
reer growth to young dynamic workers(like Prakash) but wishes to retain them.”
70% of employees preferred having 360* performance reviews but only 54% wanted stock options
(due to volatility involved). Greater trust and transparency in 360* perform‐
ance reviews can help remove some of the glitches faced in acceptance of
this system.
PAY AND BENEFITS
20
you get related benefits like say health care flexibility account spend, housing, travel, profit sharing,
education assist, paid vacations, wellness programs, company discounts, parking privileges and
many others. “
Regarding benefits, health insurance came out to be the most valued benefit which validates our fact
that health is the most important concern affecting happiness. Other important factors were paid leave
and retirement funds. 64% believed that health concerns affected their work life while only 37%
wanted their company to track their health (possible reasons can be mistrust and privacy issues).
For countries where there is no government supported health system (like NHS in UK), innovative
ways to customize health benefits can be used where employees can customize their health coverage
based on their needs. If needed they can opt out of group coverage and company reimburses them
for the policies purchased based on set limits. DR. Chuck believes that if employees show interest,
they can allow companies to track their health expenses and help them optimize their spending. In‐
troduction of wellness program for employees can also be helpful.
Customizable leaves (taking a leave on Monday instead of Memorial day) were desired by 66% and
are an option that won’t affect balance sheet but can increase satisfaction manifold.
RADHA
SINGH
Lastly, let me introduce Radha Singh‐ Corporate Lawyer who works in one of the High Courts of India consulting mainly on corporate discrimination cases on gender bias. Had left active practice due to her pregnancy but joined back a few months back. She was one of the distinguished young lawyers han‐dling multiple lawsuits and was thinking of opening her law‐firm but due to the pregnancy break she lost touch with the profession and fell 3 years behind her male colleagues; forcing her to join her jun‐ior’s law firm as an assistant lawyer. She has recently filed a lawsuit for her new client against a big cor‐porate house in relation to maternity leaves. Her recent adventures sparked the need to ask about gender issues in my survey and look for possible solutions on issues concerning women’s career growth.
DISCRIMINATION
21
Only 22% reported being discriminated and 88% supported help‐lines to combat it. Given the youth
and the education levels of the sample, discrimination in its crude form appears to be lesser in number.
On gender issues, 64% believe that gender did not affect work productivity but 65% believed that ma‐
ternity leaves affect women’s professional growth. Plus 74% of respondents considered gender of their
supervisor irrelevant. On breaking up these findings on the basis of gender, women were expected to
rate higher on being discriminated or having stronger views on women issues. But the differences in
male and female opinion were marginal(8‐10%). Dr. Chuck tweets, “Today’s younger generation feels
that gender bias belonged to the past and are hopeful of what lies at future workplaces”. In order to
reduce maternity’s effect on women’s professional growth, work and time flexibility can be offered
while women employees are on their maternity/post pregnancy periods. Maternity aid (financial)
can also be used to help women pass through early ages of child. Due to population decline in several
parts of the world, these steps can be helpful not only to women employees but also to society in
general. Shared parenting concepts like paternal leaves can also be considered in addition to help
from Work‐Life Consultants.
DR. CHUCK Finally Dr. Chuck tweets, “Follow my
advice and you can retain your em‐
ployees:.
If you still have energy you can con‐
tinue reading as to how I made this
paper possible without spending a
dollar.
22
BUDGET A 0$ project
Not a single dollar was asked for, nor a single dollar spent.
In pure numerical terms, not a single dollar was spent on this project. But if resources used as a result
of established relations or newly networked relations (using either social networks (public/company
based)) or 2nd degree relations, if valued using models proposed by Relationship Value literature, costs
can add up to 3000$. This project was done costless purely due to my belief in harnessing the power of
networking for a non‐commercial project with a hope of impact for a bigger cause.
I had used database of various institutions including TNS, OECD, Gallup and various online universities. All concerned departments and country offices of TNS were kind enough to help me with their data‐base and existing knowledge base for this project. OECD data is available for free while I had signed up for free access to Worldview of Gallup. Statistical data relating to my work was obtained from various freely available sites on the internet including Google World data.
After the initial data analysis, I decided to roll out a cross continental survey. For hosting this survey, Qualtrics provided me with a free‐limited access membership. This being a cross‐continental project, I needed multiple translations. Though Google Translate was used, machine translations were not per‐fect. Hence, I needed native speakers to correct these machine translations. Various people from Los Angeles‐US to Canada, Tokyo to Jordan came forward to help me in this process. For distribution of this survey, several of my contacts in India, US, UK, Germany were used; who were further asked to for‐ward it to their colleagues worldwide. Several sectors from financial institutions to managerial staff in textiles and pharmaceutical, Technology industry to academic institutions were covered. I also used my follower base on TNS internal forums like Yammer to spread the word. For hard to reach countries (for me) with no contacts (like Japan, China, Eastern Europe), a request was sent to senior management of respective companies to spread the word. I also made extensive use of LinkedIn to post my survey on various groups (English and non‐English). I also joined various public groups and liked institution pages (like OECD, European Youth forums, Groupon, WPP etc) to spread the word. 400+ responses in around 144 hours (around 3 responses every hour) from various parts of the world were received, without any incentive paid for filling the survey.
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TARGET Any Knowledge worker
Target of this research was any knowledge worker who has at least a college degree (Bachelors) and presently working in OECD countries (except Mexico and Israel) or India or China. These countries rep‐resent close to 80% of world economy and around 55% of world population. When I started the pro‐ject, I had to decide on whether I should go for High Income Knowledge worker(also called White Collar workers) or Lower Income workers working mostly in labor intensive industries(also called Blue Collar worker). Blue collar workers form a major chunk of economy and population; hence are extremely im‐portant but because I was planning for a cross continental study with countries on different stages of economic(capitalist) evolution, incorporating this class of workers would have bought a lot of diversity/variance in my study which would have been difficult to manage and would require close to 6 months to give proper justice to study; given that these are comparatively hard to reach population as they aren’t well connected with the world outside. Deciding on which countries to opt for was based on sev‐eral factors like size of economy, economic growth, political power, availability of data(for all planed stages of my study). OECD countries, India and China fitted well. Other big economies left out were Mexico, Brazil, Israel, Russia and Indonesia. Because I was working on multiple datasets obtained from multiple sources, findings of which were to be further tested by fielding a small survey, countries either didn’t have enough data in available database or had operational issues(in fielding surveys).
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METHODOLOGIES How it all happened..
I started off with a simple purpose in mind; for a knowledge worker, what can make their life at office
better? But life at office is not only about life between the cubicles, it is affected by factors that go be‐
yond the 4 walls of office. Hence, I expanded my objective of study to a greater impact‐ what makes
people happier in life with primary focus of interest on their professional life and its influence on life(in
totality). Hence I tried to find impact of professional happiness on overall happiness and study how
much does it contribute; see if other aspects that affect their overall happiness, if altered, can affect
their professional happiness.
Here I divided my research into two parts. First the macro level study where overall happiness or satis‐
faction with life was analyzed. In the second part, I analyzed various office related factors contributing
to overall professional satisfaction. Generally for any research in MR, survey is often used to study pub‐
lic opinion. Hence the normal logic would have said to roll out a survey asking people about their work
related problems and based on those findings roll out another survey posing solutions and asking their
opinion on the proposed solutions.
Yet given that my study was cross continental, 2 surveys would have been difficult to execute in given
time and resources. Plus I was able to get database which was comprehensive and gave me a clear idea
of work related issues in different geographies. Moreover, as I had decided to include Macro issues
ranging from economy to law and order, to office problems it increased the scope of my study which
would have been difficult to cover, had I gone for 2 surveys. The methodology executed helped me to
pose better questions on problems and solutions as I had a prior info and not only gave me a 360* view
of white collar workers but also helped validate my findings obtained from mathematical analysis on
database.
Overall happiness part was again divided into two parts. For overall happiness, I took an index called
Positive Wellbeing Index (yearly) used by OECD and is measured by Gallup. Positive Index measures the
wellbeing experienced by respondents. Now wellbeing (or I call it as happiness or satisfaction) can be
measured in two ways. One by the so called measurable external factors like Employments, Health,
Law and Order, Society around you etc., or by the immeasurable factors that relate to your personal
experiences of life. I called the first one as Tangible Attributes while the later as Subtle Attributes. For
Tangible attributes, all attributes (except two) used in calculation of Wellbeing Index by OECD were
used and were linked up with Positive Index to find out how much did each attribute contribute. Talk‐
ing about this process, 18 attributes of wellbeing were used which were condensed into 6 factors and
found contribution (towards Positive Index) using a methodology called Bayesian Belief Network
(Precision‐83%). This gave me an idea as to how much were Quantitative attributes contributing to
Positive Wellbeing Index. This analysis was followed by a country‐wise analysis, where, with respect to
given importance, performance of a country on these attributes was studied. Then I ran a Modified
Kruskals analysis(R2 = 0.9) on subtle attributes linking it with Positive Index which gave measurable
contribution of subtle attributes to Positive Index and this was followed by country‐wise analysis of
their performance on these attributes given their importance.
25
Moving on to In‐Office analysis, I used data available from various offices of TNS and other companies
working in Employee Insights and ran analysis on that data. Data made available was continental data,
of which one of the attribute that was available from the existing dataset was Overall Satisfaction Index
(office). I linked this index with five other attributes like Motivation to rejoin company, Perceived
strength of company in market etc. and found their relative contribution on office satisfaction index
using PLS regression. I also obtained continental metadata on opinions of employees on various attrib‐
utes (around 54 attributes collected in various surveys conducted in different companies around the
globe). Given the large number of attributes and lesser number of respondents (which were continents
here), none of the normally used Driver analysis was giving reliable results. Then I used Biplots but due
to inherent differences in rating patterns of different continents (like Europeans and Australians rated
mostly in the middle of the scale while North Americans rated on higher side of the scale) findings
were getting biased towards North America. Hence I used correspondence maps which showed rela‐
tive performance of each continent on each of the 54 attributes mentioned above.
After having studied all this data, I had a clear view on the problems faced in different countries and
continents. But problems need to be solved. Hence I researched several HR documents, articles in man‐
agement consulting literature and best HR practices used around the world, held talks with HR consult‐
ants and talked to people from different geographies about different and innovative HR policies used in
their respective countries. Based on this exercise, I came out with a list of possible solutions to various
problems. Now in order to find possible acceptance for these solutions, primary survey was to be used
and in order to keep the survey to a manageable size, most important solutions were kept inside the
survey for being tested.
A QUICK EXERCISE IN CROWD WISDOM to verify my analysis
After the initial analysis, a small Ad‐hoc survey was done asking one question‐ Tell me MOST important thing that will make life at your office better. Around 35 responses were collected in 45 minutes where people listed things that were on top of their mind. Most important ones came out to be Colleagues and Pay (Salary). This short crowd wisdom exercise gave confidence that I was on right path in my mathematical analysis.
Hence I had two sides on the table‐ Problems – Solutions. Different countries, different cultures but
several HR practices used were similar to a greater extent. Several HR departments of various MNCs
are converging to similar worldwide practices. Different countries may be at different stages of eco‐
nomic development but basic intricacies of white collar work were similar (unless affected by law or
society). Plus with MNCs converging to these universal HR practices, local companies are also getting
forced to be on the same page in order to retain talent.
On the other side of the coin, if some MNCs are following different practices in different countries, with several cross country employee movements and information technology, employees from lesser benefitted countries are getting exposed to these benefits. This raises their expectation which some‐times leads to introduction of those policies in their countries. Plus HR departments of different coun‐tries are also learning to tackle emerging problems from their counterparts and hence introducing sev‐eral policies in their countries leading to HR policy standardization (worldwide).
26
Tasked with all these findings, I decided to roll out a single worldwide survey. I included questions on
factors affecting their happiness, work‐life balance followed by work related issues and their receptive‐
ness to possible solutions. While making the questionnaire, an attempt was made to make it as simple
as possible to understand and interesting (with addition of graphical sliders and use of work related
cartoons and comical strips to keep people engaged).
“I have just filled out the survey. It was quite interesting”. ‐Strategic Planning Director from Hungary
“Survey takes 5‐10 minutes and is relatively painless.” Account Manager(Technology company) from
Dallas, USA
. Yet a care was taken such that the survey is easy to load in countries with lesser internet speeds. Be‐
cause, I was not incentivizing the customer for this 66 question long survey, it was important to keep
them glued. Yet, by the end, out of 433 respondents, I had around 67% respondents completing entire
survey.
Before making this survey go live, pre‐testing of survey was done to ensure ease of understanding the
questions and use of various scales and sliders. Acquaintances from US, India and Canada tested the
survey on different devices with different connection speeds to ensure that the survey goes event‐free
(technologically).
English survey was launched while translations for other languages (French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese) started in backdrop. Initially links of survey were sent to my contacts in US, India, UK, Australia, Canada, Netherlands and Scandinavia and were asked to pass it on to their colleagues. On the other side, link was posted on several groups on LinkedIn (Alumni networks to HR groups to net‐working groups for professionals). Several IEEE forums, blog forums for business professionals and in‐dustry specific forums were used for posting. OECD, World Economic forums, European Youth Develop‐ment, WPP pages on Facebook were also used, in addition to some 50 other pages on Facebook. Yet posting a link only, may not help you get the eyeballs; there needs to be a constant activity on a posted link to get people interested. Being a one man army; after 24 hours, I liked those posts and after 36 hours, if there wasn’t any comment on the post, a request to fill the survey was posted. This made the post to remain live in the Discussion streams. There were instances when people completed the survey and either posted that they had completed the survey or made a comment on the study. I received around 15‐20 requests from different parts of the world showing interest in the study or wanting to connect with me after being impressed by the survey and its objective. There were comments by vari‐ous professionals asking me about the methodologies used and there were also people sending me various research links that could help me in this project and an invitation to a conference(on a similar topic) in Vancouver, Canada. There was an interesting email telling me that he was retired for last 12 years but asked if he could be helpful to me in my survey and cited the need for more similar studies to be posted and done worldwide. One of the key learning from this exercise was that instead of making people respond to a survey, we should make them feel as a part of study. Not only should we make it interesting and engaging but also people should understand the reason for the study and want to be a part of the solution.
27
For every comment, I responded as soon as possible and this habit had two advantages. First, people felt more engaged with the study (for people to whom I was responding and people reading the discus‐sion) and it kept my discussions in the eyeballs of the members. Secondly, my study respondents knew my name , could search me on the net and see who I was and what I had done in the past and what am I doing now. That gave a face to my work and hence a legitimacy to associate with. For a commercial study, I would say that an honest appeal for help in a research where people can relate to your study can fetch better results than a simple questionnaire to be filled by people interested in panel incen‐tives.
Normally by snowballing, I was expecting to get responses from contacts of 2nd degree but there were
responses from people who were on the 4th degree of separation referred by people whom I had never
even heard of. One thing to note here is that in cross‐continental survey, every country is different in
mechanisms of responding. What works in US may not work in China. In India, simply posting on a blog
may not get you desired responses for a 66 question survey while in UK asking someone to fill(if they
haven’t) may be considered too rude. Making people interested in the cause works in US and UK (and
similar countries) while in India, person forwarding your email matters in addition to personal contacts.
Also a change of characteristics was observed in migrant workers from India and China living in west‐
ern world.
While the English survey was on, translations had started for French, German, Spanish, Japanese and
Chinese. It’s costly to get professional translators, hence Google Translate was used. But machine
translations are never perfect. Hence, I needed native speakers to check these translations. Inspired by
crowd sourcing, I used my social networks to ask people who would be willing to devote time to read
and correct my translations. A friend of mine in Portugal came forward for Spanish while a Chinese
friend of mine in Los Angeles looked at the Chinese translations; while a Canadian friend corrected the
French. A word on crowd sourcing‐ We need to be cautious and should not rely totally on crowd
sourced references and be ready with backups in case crowd sourced references are unable to revert
back on time. For German translations, an interesting event took place. I had posted Japanese survey
link on a FB page and a guy from Jordan expressed his feeling about the survey. On looking at his Face‐
book profile, I found that he is a professional translator from University of Munich and lives in Jordan. I
asked him for a favor (to check German translations) and he accepted it for the greater cause of my
study.
With rollout of 5 additional language surveys, I succeeded in gathering around 400+ (433 to be precise) responses. Had I allowed the survey to continue with added vigor, I would have gathered close to 600+ responses but due to time constraints, I stopped at 433. Another lesson that I learnt was that using snowballing and free forums, there are stages of response cycle. It takes time for the survey to pick up, then there is a sudden spike and then it dies down. Solution to keeping the momentum is to keep tick‐ing responses, initially by using personal emails and references while during dying times, you can use incentivized panels(if you have not yet reached your desired sample size).
28
A question about sampling: Generally I would have gone for some probabilistic sampling method but I realized that snowballing and posting your link in wide variety of forums takes the survey into a kind of random walk process which can result in a sample which is much more robust and the people respond‐ing are the ones who are the most interested in the outcomes of study and not on incentives. Ending this long discussion on methodologies used, based on survey numbers, data was analyzed using BBN, Segmentations and other simpler techniques to analyze what was being said by white collar workers worldwide.
29
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am extremely thankful to the following people for their support in making this paper possible– My family (mummy, papa, didi), Advanced Analytics department at TNS headed by Shiva Kumar Raman, Dr. Raj Sethuraman, Michael Schroeder, Ina Mileno-vic, Jason Spencer, Graham Tocher, Qualtrics, Chinanshu Chotani, Agnes Tang, Chris-tian Dubeau, Kazushi Ara, Sandeep Budhiraja, Nidhi Goda, Porcia Vaughn, Hasan Abulaban, Lauren Babis, Ravi Bagree, Anuradha Roy, Ashok Sethi, Yashraj, Divyang Trivedi, Nupur Risbood, Tripti Srivastava to name a few.
30
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