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Why Happiness Matters: Workplace Productivity & Profitability

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South Africa’s only happiness-at-work conference to reveal how and why happy employees affect the bottom line

 

15th October, Johannesburg. There is compelling evidence that it pays to invest in your employees’ happiness. Research findings are clear that happier employees are more productive, which improves your bottom line. The happiest employees have 65% more energy, spend twice as much time on task, and intend to stay in their job 4 times longer, according to the iOpener Institute.

But what does “being happy” at work actually mean? Why is happiness considered the antidote to poor performance? Isn’t “happiness” just a fuzzy concept? Should workforce “happiness” be on your agenda in the current tough economic climate? What does making happy employees mean in real terms for business leaders and managers? What are the challenges faced by South African organisations in particular?

South Africa’s only happiness-at-work conference returns to Johannesburg this December for the fourth time, hosted by Business Results Group (BRG) and the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). This year’s event in Johannesburg will bring participants up to speed with all aspects behind workforce happiness – its theory, its value and its challenges – for managers, teams and individuals. Speakers will include Dr Tara Swart, the British neuroscience expert and business coach, Katie Demain, Africa’s foremost expert in workplace happiness, Buyani Zwane, CEO of Breakthrough Development, Dr Barbara Holtmann, social transformation expert, Jayshree Naidoo, who heads the Standard Bank Incubator, Victor Kgomoeswana, business author, speaker and consultant, and lateral thinking evangelist Nicola Tyler. The event will be MC’d by the infamous Lebo Mashile, poet and performer, who will use storytelling to weave a golden thread of happiness throughout the day.

“If your employees find joy and meaning in what they’re doing on a day-to-day basis, there are strong odds that this will benefit your profit margin. To shape a happy workforce, you need to listen to them, appreciate them, support them, and empower them to use their strengths,” says Nicola Tyler, CEO of Business Results Group.

The Happiness-at-Work Conference takes place on 4th December at The Forum, Bryanston, Johannesburg. The event content is aimed at line and divisional managers, team managers, HR directors and HR business partners, as well as any other learning and development specialists. Last year’s “Science of Happiness at Work™ ” conference sold out with executives and managers from the private and public sectors participating. Natasha Rudy, Director at The People Strategies says that last year’s event was “Brilliant. Learnt so much. Lots of tools and ideas to implement in the workplace. Very interesting, engaging and brilliant presenters”

The Happiness at Work Conference is brought to South Africa by Business Results Group and the Gordon Institute of Business Science.
Registrations and Further Information

To register for the event or for press enquiries please contact:
Angela Milburn | Email: rsvp@brg.co.za | Cell: 0833271593 | Phone: 0861247328
You can also visit the event listing at //www.brg.co.za/speakers/happiness-at-work-2015

Speaker Bios

About Dr Tara Swart, CEO, The Unlimited Mind
Tara is the only leadership coach with a PhD in neuroscience and a successful career as medical doctor behind her. This unique combination of experience comes together to create an uncompromising and holistic impact on performance optimisation in businesses in the UK, USA, SE Asia and South Africa. Tara is passionate about disseminating simple, pragmatic neuroscience-based messages that change the way people work and sustainably translate to tangible financial improvement in the business. Her neuroscience consulting programme is designed for senior teams in businesses that need their people to do more with less and keep doing it, better and for longer without burning out.Tara is at the forefront of the application of neuroscience to business. She is a published author of 2 books and over 20 articles in journals of neuroscience and coaching. She speaks globally on the brain in business at international conferences, blue chip corporations and at top business schools including Oxford, Stanford and MIT (where she is Senior Lecturer and runs the Neuroscience for Leadership programme). She is regularly quoted in the press and her latest book, Neuroscience for Leadership was published by Palgrave MacMillan this year.

About Jayshree Naidoo, Standard Bank Incubator
As the former Head of Strategy Management and Innovation at DBSA and ex CEO of DaVinci Design, Jayshree now finds herself heading up the Standard Bank Incubator, a creative thinking space that brings together the two works that she is most passionate about innovation and entrepreneurship. She completed her MBA research on in Innovation and Entrepreneurship Capacity Creation, a thesis that capitalised on her 23 years of experience in the field, and across a variety of industries. She has held positions at Discovery, ABSA, Internet Solutions and was a Board Member of Junior Achievement South Africa and former Chair of SAINe (The Southern African Innovation Network).

About Victor Kgomoeswana, Author, Speaker and Consultant
Victor is well known as an African business expert, having published his local best seller, Africa is Open for Business. His exposure to the continent came as he headed up Business Development for PPC, taking him into corners of the continent and unveiling a world of possibility and hope in a region that had historically received scant attention from the rest of the world. As former executive of Ernst & Young, his book brings to life 50 stories of innovation and opportunity behind the business headlines of the last ten years. From the introduction of M-pesa in Kenya to changing the image of Nigeria as Africa’s fraud capital, and from Rwandan coffee farmers to Ethiopian Airlines, and other remarkable stories in between, Kgomoeswana criss-crosses the continent to highlight the most fascinating business stories and their impact on the future of Africa. He is the producer of Africa Business Report, flighted by 702 and SAFM, and is frequently featured on local and international television and radio stations.

About Dr Barbara Holtmann, Social Transformation Consultant
Having completed a PhD in Social Transformation System methodology, Barbara is hailed as an expert in facilitating complex visionary dialogue processes engaging broad stakeholder groups. Her unique approach to “What it looks like when it’s fixed” is also the title of her book, one in which she shares both her research and a deep understanding for the complexities of building communities, businesses and nations in a rapidly changing world. Barbara serves on the board of Women in Cities International and has presented in Mexico, Montreal, Washington DC, Oslo,
Paris, Canberra and London. In Africa she has worked in Kenya, Zambia, Sierra Leone and India and by choice, the main thrust of her work is now being done in South Africa.

About Katie Demain, Consultant, Change expert and Coach
Katie is widely considered Africa’s foremost practitioner in the Science of Happiness @ WorkTM. She is a Global Associate of the iOpener Institute for People and Performance in the UK and with a career spanning more than 20 years, Katie has lived and worked in 12 different countries. With a background in journalism, Katie spent many years leading a team of journalists throughout Africa to research and write economic reports for The Economist, Newsweek, USA Today and other globally recognized publications. Nine years ago, Katie redefined her career to become one of Europe’s most sought after Executive Coaches, working with a number of the world’s top business schools. Her passion is Workplace Happiness and Performance, and her home is South Africa. Today Katie has an enviable client, one that spans continents, countries and companies. She is fluent in French and Spanish and holds a BA in European Business Management.

About Buyani Zwane, CEO of Breakthrough Development
Buyani is an inspiring leader, motivational speaker and facilitator of meaningful dialogue and development programmes for leaders. He has been involved with HR at Shell, Old Mutual, Eskom, Sasol and Uthingo Management. Today Buyani is CEO of Breakthrough Development and a part-time faculty member of the Gordon Institute of Business Science. He is also the winner of the prestigious Black Management Forum’s Manager of the Year, and is the former President of the Black Management Forum in Mpumalanga. He holds a BSc in Industrial Psychology and a number of qualifications in leadership and management development. Entertaining, engaging, committed and passionate about change, Buyani brings more than 20 years of development experience to his presentations.

About Nicola Tyler, CEO, Business Results Group
South Africa’s local expert in the field of lateral thinking, and Founder of Business Results Group, Nicola has presented at conferences around the world. With more than 25 years in the field of learning and development, her experience spans industries and continents. She has shared the stage and conducted Q&A Sessions with great minds and leaders, including Edward de Bono, Robert Kaplan, Dave Ulrich, Martin Seligman, Tal Ben Shahar, Ricardo Semler, Martin Lindstrom, Richard Koch and Dave Norton. Nicola is a popular and sought after strategic thinker, bringing her experience as a trained lateral thinker to strategic conversations across the continent. As a former lecturer on the GIBS MBA, a certified Master Trainer in de Bono Thinking Systems and Practitioner in Liz Wiseman’s Multipliers programme, Nicola is both a popular facilitator and keynote speaker at events around the world.

About Lebo Mashile, Poet and Performer
Lebo Mashile A poet and a performer who is passionate about change, children,communication and collaboration. Lebo is as comfortable on stage as she is behind a camera, having had a career that has spanned scriptwriting, producing, presenting and stage acting. Lebo’s natural talent has now been discovered by the corporate world, where she brings to life her talent for poetry and arts in the workplace. A masterful storyteller, self-scripted, Lebo’s career has seen her named one of New African’s magazines “Top 100 Africans” and winner of the Art Ambassador award for South African Women in the Arts. She holds a Degree in Law and International Relations, is an active ambassador and campaigner for change and has produced two award winning CD’s, Ribbon of Rhythm and Flying Above the Sky.

7 GREAT Reasons to Balance your Balanced Scorecard

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Descartes said “I think therefore I am”.  De Bono says “I do therefore I matter”.   Whether we call it strategy execution or service delivery the fact remains that here in South Africa we rank high on the thinking stakes, and low on the implementation scales.

What is it about execution that ails us so much? Moreover, what can we do about it?  One solution is the introduction of a Balanced Scorecard. Yet a Scorecard of any fashion needs to work for you, and be relevant to your business to achieve the results you desire.  It is more than an academic exercise, but rather needs to provide leaders and managers with a snapshot of the business, one that enables better risk management and improved decision making.

According to Dr. Bob Frost, a Performance Measurement expert, there are 7 GOOD REASONS WHY YOU NEED TO USE A SCORECARD EFFECTIVELY:

  1. Scorecards drive better performance.  According to Frost, “feedback enhances performance”. Being able to review your progress towards a goal, drives people (teams and groups) to higher levels of performance.
  1. Scorecards translate your strategy. Translating the big picture strategy into tangible concreate steps and metrics is key for any strategy implimentaton.  Your scorecard needs to enable people to move, change direction and implement your thinking faster than your competition. 
  1. Scorecards help ensure you have the right measures.  “Effective performance scorecards are, by nature, consciously and purposefully constructed. In building one, you develop a logical structure that helps everyone know what should be measured, what belongs on the scorecard and what does not belong.”  What gets measured gets done, and its critical that you measure the right things as metrics alone are not enough.  WHAT is measured must also be at forefront of your scorecard thinking.
  1. Scorecards encourage balanced performance.  “The proper scorecard design keeps the right balance of operational and strategic factors on your radar screen.”  Balancing business as usual with strategic activity will ensure that you have the right balance of focus for success.  An over emphasis on any one strategy may result in a loss of opportunity somewhere else. Your Scorecard activities need to remain in balance, ensuring that all the key elements of success are considered when planning the detailed activities. 
  1. Scorecards point out what’s missing.  “The scorecard will help you see if any key factors are missing—the gaps stand out.”  If you don’t have a sound model on which to base your thinking, then it’s highly possible that something will get missed out.  Introducing the Balanced Scorecard should go beyond the obvious measures and also seek to highlight the gaps, what’s missing and what needs to be done to fill those gaps.    
  1. Scorecards encourage GREAT management.  Great management is about monitoring performance.  Leadership takes risks, management mitigates them.  For sound corporate management to be in place, a thorough monitoring system needs to be introduced.  The Balanced Scorecard is a way of providing management with the appropriate information to enable them to make decisions and manage risk more effectively.
  1. Scorecards communicate – they tell the story.  A view favoured by investors and analysts, a full scorecard tell a full story.  According to Frost the scorecard enables you to “present a compelling picture of performance that is undistorted by focus on an individual issue.”  This ensures that reports do not allow us to be easily ‘distracted’ by one problem and potentially lose sight of the others that require attention.

Organisations, governments, NGO’s and institutions around the world have successfully introduced the Balanced Scorecard to assist them in delivery results to shareholders and stakeholders, ultimately demonstrating how strategic thinking gets translated into business results.  Developed by Harvard Professor, Robert Kaplan and Dr. Dave Norton, the Balanced Scorecard is widely considered as the definitive model for translating strategy into action. 

Prof. Robert Kaplan will be presenting LIVE in South Africa on 17 September 2015, delivering his world renowned lecture on Strategy Execution.  Hosted by Business Results Group, this one-day event promises to provide you with the tools, strategies and techniques to ensure that you continue to get the most out of YOUR Balanced Scorecard.  Book Now //www.brg.co.za/speakers/prof-robert-kaplan/

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Are You Suffering From Initiative Overload?

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Most likely, yes! Companies here in South Africa and around the world are routinely spending hundreds of millions (insert your currency) on initiatives that are seldom integrated and strip away valuable time and focus from your existing resources. Not only that, but the result and impact of those initiatives are often hard to quantify. What is the real value delivered?

Special projects and initiatives often put additional strain on company resources and take valuable time away from day-to-day operations. Ask any manager or leader in a business what wastes their time and you’ll be sure to get three common answers;

  1. too many initiatives and
  2. too many meetings (most of them of course about the initiatives) and
  3. slow decision making. According to Harvard Professor Robert Kaplan, companies introduce an “abundance of projects [that] compete for limited resources including: Human Capital, IT and Financial”.

Sorry guys, but you appear to be the main culprits and while your projects may provide useful support services to the group, the value of those projects remains hard to quantify in other parts of the business.

Why? According to Kaplan there is “no integrated view across business units”, what Tom Peters would call “a lack of cross functional integration”. Divisions and departments act in isolation of each other seldom coming together to prioritize their projects and activities with their peers. The net result is commonly called a “silo organisation” a way of operating divisions within the business compete with each other internally rather externally, in the market. Who wins? Generally the competition, who, to be fair, are possibly struggling with similar challenges. In short, the fight is happening on the wrong side of the fence.

The systemic consequence (a clever way of saying the knock on effect) of silo thinking impacts employee morale and organisation performance. Companies end up fat, with too many heads pulling in different directions, or internally political, with leaders and teams fighting for attention, resource and budget. Put that kind of thinking into the workforce and the net result is a plethora of headaches for which no pill can easily cure. Layer into this the challenges that come with a matrix structure, and then the real complaints come: we are pulled in too many directions, we don’t have the time, we’re in too many meetings, the goal is not clear, we don’t have the skills.

Kaplan goes on to add that there is often “[no clear] distinction between strategic and operational project efforts”. Poor prioritization and lack of integration appear to be the basis for a slew of unorganized and, at times, chaotic activity. This renders senior decision makers with an inadequate view of the real performance of the business, and leaves the implementation teams (managers, supervisors and employees) grinding hard at things without really understanding their value or impact.

Understanding how to prioritize initiatives and projects is just one of the insights Professor Kaplan will be sharing at this year’s BRG Conference on Strategy Execution co-hosted by GIBS and sponsored by STRATX. If resource optimization and project prioritization fits into your scorecard, then this is a day not to be missed. Learn how the father of the Balanced Scorecard and Activity Based Cost Accounting can shed new light on initiative management in your business.

For more information visit //www.brg.co.za/speakers/prof-robert-kaplan/ or call BRG on 0861 B GREAT

**On the 17th September 2015, Harvard Business School, Professor Kaplan, Internationally acclaimed Lifetime Contributor to the Management and Accounting Profession will present a full day programme at The BRG Progress Conference on Executing Strategy taking place at Theatre on the Track, Kyalami Johannesburg. This year’s programme will feature Leadership, Risk, Finance, People and Project priorities.

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Employee Engagement Gap

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Dr. Caren Scheepers

“Imagine a time when you were highly absorbed and engaged at work. What were the circumstances that caused this attentiveness and engagement? What did you feel at the time, what did you see, what did you hear and what did you smell? Make that experience vivid in your mind. Let your body actually experience the feeling now.” This is an exercise that I regularly start off with when I facilitate workshops on the topic “Employee Engagement”. As you read this article you are welcome to participate. You can even partake in the next exercise, by asking a colleague to work with you.

“Now choose a partner to work with and show your partner how you literally step into those circumstances and personal experience. What your partner then needs to do is to notice attentively what you look like, sound like, your body posture and your facial expression. The next step is to mimic it so that you can see clearly how your posture for instance changes when you are truly engaged or in the zone”. You have to take turns in this exercise, obviously. It has an added benefit of practice how to “tune in” to where other people are at by mimicking their non-verbal behaviour. Consequently, it allows us to become aware of how others feel and as a result build rapport with them. The question to discuss then is, “When last have you felt this invigorated at work?” and a follow up question, “How big is the gap between what you experience when you are fully engaged and your current work circumstances?”

Having observed numerous of these exercises, I realised that it is clear when employees are engaged and that it is actually quite contagious. Other observations were that the more upright body postures generally brought positive energy into the room and lasted long after the exercise. Neuropsychology explains this phenomenon by biochemical neurotransmitters in our brains that are activated by the imaginary incident, which also explains why we would feel fearful of circumstances that have not yet taken place (Scheepers & Jooste, 2012).

Tuning into our own awareness of being engaged or withdrawn as well as to others’ experiences, teaches us intuitively what engagement is about. Employee engagement is topical currently and mostly practitioners have been writing about this phenomenon. Lately, it luckily also grabbed the interest of academia that quite frankly wanted to find out whether employee engagement was only the latest “fad of the month”. Empirical studies followed that were published in top tier journals. For instance, the seminal work of Saks (2006) on the antecedents and consequences of employee engagement has academic rigour and provides scientific evidence for what we regularly experience intuitively in our daily work lives.

Nonetheless, mainly two exponents provided the theoretical foundation for employee engagement. Kahn (1990, p.694) defined it as ”employing themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally…in varying degrees.” In turn, Maslach (2001) who conducted more than 30 years of research, contrasted engagement with burnout, another phenomenon that we often come across in our highly stressful modern work environments. Her research revealed that burnout was the opposite of being engaged and the face validity of her study is high when we consider that vigour and dedication constitute engagement, whereas exhaustion, cynicism and withdrawal illustrate the opposite. Later research of Schaufeli et al (2002) confirmed Maslach’s notion of engagement and burnout being antipodes.

You might ask whether engagement is similar to commitment. Robinson et al (2004) pointed out in this regard, that engagement is more than commitment and more than an attitude. It is rather the degree to which an employee is attentive and absorbed in their work. Saks’ (2006) research provided evidence that commitment is actually a consequence of engagement. Furthermore, we can differentiate between job and organisational engagement. As a result, this article will focus on these two aspects.

a)         Job engagement 

Some people are highly engaged with their organisations, whereas others are actually engaged with their discipline or type of work and do not care where they conduct this job. These employees find meaning in the content of their work. Interestingly, job engagement increases when people have more contact with the beneficiaries of their work (Grant, 2012). Consequently, organisations must make a concerted effort to get back-office employees in contact with external or internal customers who are impacted by the quality of their work or lack thereof.

For the last 7 years, I have been lecturing on the GIBS MBA Module: Organisational Development and Transformation and I regularly asked these students whether they experience quality of work life. Sadly, over the years few of the MBA’s could declare that they were experiencing quality of work life. We often discussed Hackman and Oldham’s (1980) recommendations of bringing more of themselves into their work or being more engaged by: ensuring jobs are challenging, having variety, conducting significant tasks, allowing for personal discretion and making an important contribution. These students reported that getting feedback on their performance also increased meaningfulness of their jobs.

An interesting theory that could be associated with job engagement is the Social Exchange Theory or (SET) that implies that employees, who are provided with challenging and enriched jobs, feel obliged to reciprocate by responding with higher levels of engagement (Saks, 2006). On the other hand, when employees do not feel supported by colleagues or they do not get appropriate recognition and rewards, it leads to the burnout syndrome (Maslach et al, 2001). Kahn’s (1990) research revealed that our careers could constitute a series of leaps of engagement and falls of disengagement as well as that the person-role dynamics are complex.

b)         Organisational engagement 

Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) found that engaged employees have a greater attachment to their organisation. As a result, they have a lower intention to quit. Furthermore, they are involved in extra-role behaviour or being good organisational citizens and contribute to the greater organisation and not only to their own department or division.

I found it disappointing that in contrast, numerous executives on Senior Management Programmes found it difficult to articulate the social value that their organisations were creating and rather focused on financial results, whereas without financial results the organisation would anyway not be able to sustain itself. Nonetheless, through firstly meeting human needs by producing products or delivering services, organisations are able to declare financial returns and sustain the business. To the contrary, luckily organisations in South Africa like Nedbank, Woolworths, Nampak and FNB utilize corporate social responsibility projects as team building exercises and to build pride in their organisation’s contribution to society and subsequently organisational engagement.

Perceived procedural justice or fairness with regards to distribution of resources also influences organisational engagement (Rhoades et al, 2001). Conversely, a lack of fairness can exacerbate burnout (Maslach et al, 2001). Another dimension to consider is the Psychological Contract (Rousseau, 2004) with the resultant two-way relationship where employees receive economic and socio-emotional resources from the organisation and they respond in kind and repay the organisation by being psychologically present or engaged. We found in a specific study around this psychological contract that the human resources practice that had the most important relationship with the relational contract was training and development (Scheepers & Shuping, 2011). Consequently, investing in employees’ development would result in them perceiving that they are important to the organisation and they would reciprocate with loyalty to the organisation.

In closing, it is important to note that in the USA the engagement gap or lost of productivity cost due to employees being disengaged is estimated at $300 billion per annum (Kowalski, 2003). We do not have South African statistics to report however, the engagement gap remains an important phenomenon to investigate and I invite more researchers to conduct qualitative and quantitative studies to provide scientific evidence of the antecedents and consequences of employee engagement.

Follow Dave Ulrich on twitter: @dave_ulrich

References: 

  • Grant, A. M. (2012). Leading with meaning: Beneficiary contact, prosocial impact, and the performance effects of transformational leadership, Academy of Management Journal, 55 (2), 458-476.
  • Hackman, J. R. & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work Redesign, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
  • Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work, Academy of Management Journal, 33 (4), 692-724.
  • Kowalski, B. (2003). The Engagement Gap, Training, 40 (4), 62, as cited in Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21 (7), 600-619.
  • Maslach,C., Schaufelli, W. B. & Leiter, M. P. (2001). Job Burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 397-422.
  • Rhoades, L., Eisenberger, R. & Armeli, S. (2001). Affective commitment to the organisation: the contribution of perceived organisational support, Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 825-836.
  • Rousseau, D. M. (2004). Psychological contracts in the workplace: Understanding the ties that motivate, Academy of Management Executive, 18(1), 120-127.
  • Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21 (7), 600-619.
  • Schaufeli, W. B., Salanova, M., Gonzalez-Roma, V. & Bakker, A.B. (2002). The measurement of engagement and burnout: a two sample confirmatory factor analysis approach, Journal of Happiness Studies, 3 (3), 71-92.
  • Schaufeli, W. B & Baker, A. B. (2004). Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: a multi-sample study, Journal of Organisational Behaviour, 25, 293-315.
  • Scheepers, C. B. & Jooste, M. (2012). Neuroleadership informs internal business coaches on change, COMENSANews, Nov 30.
  • Scheepers, C. B. & Shuping, J. G. (2011). The effect of human resource practices on the psychological contract at an iron ore mining company in South Africa. South Africa Journal of Human Resources Management, 9(1), 1-19.