productivity:

Maintaining happiness, loyalty among employees can lead to higher levels of success in the workplace

Executive director James Kilber scoops out ice cream to employees during a company ice cream party at Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada in Las Vegas on Monday, April 30, 2012.

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Medical assistant Dee Iniesta, left, and financial counselor Sandy Turkington add toppings to their ice cream during a company ice cream party at Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada in Las Vegas on Monday, April 30, 2012.

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A happy office environment has been shown both scientifically and anecdotally to lead to more engaged and productive workers, ultimately pushing companies to greater success.

But workplace morale across Southern Nevada has been battered by the waves of layoffs, years of stagnant wage growth and general economic uncertainty brought on by the recession.

Reported levels of employee engagement and satisfaction have dipped over the past few years, but are on the rise again as the economy stabilizes.

The effects of the recession have accelerated shifts in how people view their jobs, their careers and their loyalty to a particular company, but many of the fundamentals for building a workplace that retains workers and helps them succeed remain the same, experts say.

Communication is critical, they say, as employees who feel free to voice concerns or give input on projects take more ownership in the overall success of a company.

Making employees feel appreciated, through such means as bonuses, greater autonomy on the job or work-sponsored social activities, can also build connections that help retain workers.

“There’s a really compelling business reason to make a positive workplace environment,” said Ron McMillan, author and co-founder of workplace consulting company VitalSmarts. “These aren’t just nice things to do. They’re very practical, and in fact imperative in today’s environment where you have to share information, you have to come up with new ideas.”

Covering the basics

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Registered nurse Melody Wheeler adds toppings to her ice cream during a company ice cream party at Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada in Las Vegas on Monday, April 30, 2012.

Taking steps toward a more positive and productive office can sometimes be as simple as rearranging the furniture.

“The physical proximity you have to the people you need to touch base with to do your job is important,” McMillan said. “We’ve found having people working on different floors dramatically reduces interactions. A person might feel less contacted, feel less involved and they often report much lower satisfaction.”

Beyond the physical layout of an office, most employees hold certain basic expectations from their job, said Leo Gobbo, human resources manager at Titanium Metals Corporation.

“Employees want to know their basic needs are met — that there’s competitive pay and benefits,” Gobbo said. “And then there’s the culture. Are they being appreciated for their work? Are they being challenged and enhanced in their work?”

The risks of a disengaged workforce are stark.

Employees’ level of engagement with their jobs affect “their commitment, how hard they work and how purposeful their actions are,” said David Hames, a professor at UNLV’s Lee Business School.

For service-related businesses, direct correlations have been shown between an employee’s level of satisfaction and customer satisfaction, Hames said.

Poor workplace satisfaction and engagement can lead to excessive absenteeism and tardiness, more time spent by employees on their cellphones or surfing the Internet, and overall negativity in an office, McMillan said.

The most talented employees will pursue other opportunities if they feel unhappy at a particular organization, but employees without other options tend to stay and “quit on the job,” McMillan said.

“People slow down. They don’t go the extra mile,” he said. “They do the bare minimum required to keep from getting fired.”

Creating a culture based on honesty, maintaining open lines of communication and providing authentic feedback and encouragement for employees are all simple things employers can do to improve office morale, Gobbo said.

“The biggest thing I coach and counsel is for managers to listen to their employees,” Gobbo said. “Not just an open-door policy, but really ask for their feedback.”

Hames said much of the responsibility of fostering a positive work environment falls on managers who directly supervise employees.

“The simple answer is managers need to know the people who are working with them and for them,” he said. “It’s informal. It’s imprecise. But if they know their people well enough, they know when they’re having good days and they can talk with them when they’re having a bad day.”

Gobbo says employees increasingly want more autonomy and greater input on projects and decisions made in the workplace.

“If there’s a problem, gather your team around and ask them about it. At the end of the day, you might still do what you want to do, but people will support what they help create,” he said.

Honesty, especially when things aren’t going well at a company, also helps build a connection with employees, Gobbo said.

During the recession, Gobbo’s employer, Titanium Metals Corporation, underwent a series of layoffs. The company stayed in touch with laid-off employees, Gobbo said, and even sent them gifts during the holidays.

Over the last year and a half, the company has rehired many of those workers and now employs about 640 people, Gobbo said.

“You don’t always give good news as managers,” he said, “but it’s how you give that news and whether you handle it professionally.”

Getting everyone involved

Building a positive workplace environment becomes considerably trickier when it comes time to implement strategies and policies.

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for improving office morale and productivity, because different employees have unique needs and respond to different types of incentives, said David Weisser, director of research and analytics for Quantum Workplace, which conducts employee satisfaction surveys for thousands of companies a year.

“You have to discover what it is that’s meaningful to them,” he said. “It’s not enough to just do something. You have to convince employees that you’re doing it for them, because of them, because they asked for it.”

At Caesars Entertainment, which employs 70,000 people globally, acknowledging and accommodating the differences among employees has been approached with a level of scientific rigor that has become a part of the company’s culture, said Fred Keeton, a vice president and the company’s chief diversity officer.

At Caesars, diversity has come to mean the differences in how people approach problems, come up with new ideas and interact with their co-workers, Keeton said.

The company uses analytic personality tools to identify cognitive strengths and weaknesses, Keeton said, and combines that data with other personal background information to get a more comprehensive understanding of their employees. Training focuses on how to manage and leverage the different skills employees bring to the table.

“Behavioral, geographical, cultural dimensions. All of those are things we have to manage around to create an environment where our employees feel engaged and included,” he said. “Our whole idea is ‘How do we take all of our people that have diverse cognitive tools and bring those tools into a situation so that it helps us view it differently?’”

Weisser said inherent diversity, whether it’s cognitive or cultural, means that companies need to use multiple, inter-layered strategies to promote engagement throughout the entire organization.

Measuring employee satisfaction and soliciting feedback through surveys, reviews and exit-interviews can provide companies with data to show whether particular policies are effective, he said.

“The more information you have and the better able you are to manage that information gives you a broader palette from which to paint those solutions,” he said.

With more than 400 employees, including physicians, nurses, medical technicians and support staff, spread out across 13 locations, the Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada uses a variety of programs and strategies to engage its diverse workforce, Executive Director James Kilber said.

An anonymous compliance hotline allows employees to report potentially unethical or unsafe behaviors in the workplace, and counseling services offer support for workers struggling with the challenges of caring for sick and dying patients.

Quarterly employee recognition events include an award ceremony that comes with cash prizes and strong employee development programs that allow workers to gain the skills needed to advance through the organization.

But often it’s the little things, whether it’s an impromptu coffee run in the middle of the day or an ice cream social, that employees most appreciate, Kilber said.

“We try to do a number of different things that we think the staff will enjoy. We’re always trying to come up with new and innovative ways (to reach out),” he said. “Often it’s the little things, but they all add up. ... We want to recognize the staff just because, not because it’s a special occasion.”

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