HR thinks, employees do
HR management at Facebook started collecting data to reveal what encourages employee engagement.
HR Director Lori Goler, head of HR business partners Janelle Gale and head of people growth programs Brynn Harrington established cooperation with Adam Grant. Adam Grant is an expert in organizational psychology and a professor at Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the author of the worldwide best-selling books Give and take and Originals.
Employee questionnaires with hundreds of questions were repeatedly distributed over the course several years. The result was, however, always different than what the authors of the questions expected.
The assumption that the most important factor for employee engagement is to have best friends at work didn't prove to be true. The same happened with other factors such as treating employees with respect, having a good boss, a high degree of autonomy at work or work-life balance.
Pride in first place
All the above-mentioned factors were important, but not the most important. Feeling proud of the company turned out to be the most important factor. When people are proud of working for the company, they're not only happier, but also more successful and committed.
Facebook's HR had been neglecting this factor. Major attention was focused on the relationships between people and feelings associated with their work.
Then came the phase of answering the question of what makes employees proud of the company. And the result? It's a combination of three main conditions.
- Optimism - the degree of employees' confidence in the company's future
- Mission - the degree of employees' interest in the company's vision and goals
- Social contribution - the degree of employees' trust in the company's activities as helping to create a better world
These factors drive all employees to be proud of the company regardless of which department they work in or their individual jobs. The current degree of pride in the company reflects most in employees' optimism and their opinion of the company's mission and social contribution over the past six months.
In conclusion, it's up to the company to show employees by actions, not just words, that they can be proud of it.
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