Is Everybody Happy? Your Earnings Report Might Tell You.
If company leaders want to know whether their employees like their jobs and enjoy their work, one of the best places to find the answer is in the earnings report.
Research continues to show that employees who enjoy doing what they're doing and where they're doing it are more engaged, more productive, and less likely to quit (or even look for another job) than employees who dislike, or are ambivalent about, their work. And for some companies, this shows up in company earnings.
According to a Pew Research Center survey, released in mid-December, half of all U.S. workers told Pew researchers 'they are extremely or very satisfied with their job.' An additional 38% said they are only somewhat satisfied.
Of course, survey data only provides a point-in-time snapshot of what's going on in the respondent's world. The answers people give depends on what they're asked and many other factors, ranging from, but not limited to, the time of day (Have they had their first cup of coffee yet?) or, in this case, perhaps, their boss's mood that day (grouchy, with a side of passive-aggression?).
The relationship between employee job satisfaction and performance is called the 'happy-productive worker hypothesis.'
This hypothesis, as described in Psychology Today by Professor Llewellyn E. Van Zyl of the Netherlands' Eindhoven University of Technology, is a sort-of reinforcing feedback loop. In short, it holds that 'there exists a symbiotic, reciprocal relationship between an employee's level of happiness and their work performance.'
It works like this, he says: 'When employees feel content and fulfilled, they are more likely to engage enthusiastically in their work, exhibit creativity, and maintain high levels of motivation and resilience, all of which contribute to enhanced performance. And when these employees experience the positive outcomes associated with their increased productivity, such as recognition, advancement opportunities, and a sense of accomplishment, their overall happiness and job satisfaction are further bolstered.' The one feeds on the other.
But the happy-productive worker hypothesis has its limits. Even Prof. Van Zyl is one of those who doesn't fully buy into the happy-productive worker theory. Van-Zyl legitimately points out that our personal and working lives are complicated, and that a variety of external factors can disrupt how we feel about our work, and how we perform our roles. In particular, he's referring to personal matters such as emotional stability and home, caregiving and health issues, organizational matters such as 'culture, policies, and management practices,' and such contextual factors as the company's and the economy's financial health and stability.
Leaders cannot control or influence every element of their teams' lives, nor should they try to. But they should shift their attention towards enjoyment at work. As my colleague Rosie Sargeant suggested in a recent TED talk: 'Instead of asking 'How can we boost productivity?' leaders should be asking 'How can we boost [employee]
Sargeant points to research by Alex Edmans, professor of finance at London Business School, who found that companies on the list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America delivered stock returns that beat their peers by 2.3%-3.8% per year over a 28 year period. (Cumulatively, if a company could stay on the list that long, it would mean total returns that exceed its peers' by more than 100%.)
Edmans was not the first to notice the relationship between employee satisfaction and company performance. For example, in 2019 a team of academics at the London School of Economics (LSE) statistically combined the findings of 339 studies that had examined 'Happy employees and their impact on firm performance.' All told, some 1.9 million employees and 82,248 business units at 230 different companies, spanning 49 industries and 73 countries, were involved.
The LSE meta-analysis found:
Former Forbes contributor Debbie Lovich, who works with executives on boosting productivity and enjoyment at the same time, has a playbook for leaders:
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Washington Post
4 hours ago
- Washington Post
The Bluesky bubble hurts liberals and their causes
Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, changed the social media site's name to X and altered its moderation policies, progressives have been hunting for a substitute. To judge how their search is going, consider a recent item from Politico's Playbook, which notes that 'a number of prominent commentators, experts and groups' are pledging to post on other platforms before X. 'The 'X-last' strategy,' says Playbook, 'led by Indivisible and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, is an effort to shift discourse from Elon Musk's platform to Bluesky.' Note that they're not demanding that people stop posting to X. They're just asking them to post a bit less. It's certainly inventive, but a little wistful, as though they're aware how unlikely this is to work. A recent Pew Research Center analysis found that many news influencers have Bluesky accounts (I'm one of them) but that, like me, two-thirds post irregularly. By contrast, more than 80 percent still post to X on most days. 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There, they accumulated power by shaping the contours of a conversation that included a lot of non-progressives. On Bluesky, they're mostly talking among themselves. One can say the same about Truth Social, of course, but that's not an example the left should be eager to emulate. Segregating yourself in a political silo amplifies any political movement's worst tendencies, giving free rein to your most toxic adherents and cutting you off from vital feedback about, say, your unpopular tariff policies. Something similar has happened on Bluesky. The nasty fringe has become even nastier: A Bluesky technical adviser recently felt the need to clarify that 'The 'let's tell anyone we don't like to kill themselves' crowd are not welcome here' because left-wing trolls kept urging people who disagreed with them to commit suicide. And without the leavening influence of their opponents, Bluesky discourse appears even more censorious and doctrinaire than what progressives were saying on old Twitter. 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San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Asian American income inequality: Here are the highest and lowest earners in the Bay Area
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Vox
a day ago
- Vox
Elon Musk couldn't change Trump's mind on electric vehicles
is a correspondent at Vox writing about climate change, energy policy, and science. He is also a regular contributor to the radio program Science Friday. Prior to Vox, he was a reporter for ClimateWire at E&E News. Elon Musk and President Donald Trump — two of the most powerful, outspoken billionaires in America — are still tangled up in a messy breakup over a variety of issues. It's no shock that these two men with huge egos would have friction, but it's interesting to look at some of the specific things that seem to be causing trouble between them. In particular, Trump's and Musk's differing views on climate change and clean energy have evidently become an irritant again. Recall that Musk, CEO of the electric car company Tesla, participated in White House councils during Trump's first term, but left after Trump began the process of pulling the US out of the Paris climate agreement. But Musk began to drift to the political right. He publicly backed Trump's campaign for a second term — onstage and with money — and was rewarded with a high-profile quasi-governmental post as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency that laid off thousands of federal workers. It seemed like they were accomplishing their mutual goals. Trump even turned the White House into a sales lot for Tesla and got one himself. However, Tesla made about one-third of its profits over the past decade from selling compliance credits to other carmakers in states that adopted California's vehicle emissions rules as well as in several other countries. The Trump administration is also targeting the programs that created this line of business through executive orders. The back-and-forth over the years between Trump and Musk was mirrored in the perceptions of Tesla's products. The sleek electric cars were once rolling billboards projecting that their owners were concerned about climate change and are now attacked as endorsements of fascism. More broadly, it shows that there are stubborn political divides on how people view clean technology — electric vehicles, renewable energy, battery storage, and so on. A poll this week from the Pew Research Center showed that Republicans have less and less favorable views of clean tech. The exception is nuclear energy, which has seen increasing support among both Democrats and Republicans. Pew Research Center But on the flip side, Republicans tend to strongly support fossil fuel extraction from offshore oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and coal mining — far more than Democrats do. California and 11 other states now plan to end the sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. Two-thirds of Americans say they are against this idea, but here, too, there's a political divide, with 85 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Democrats in opposition. Looking back over the past five years, it's apparent that even when Trump and Musk were in alignment, they couldn't change the political valence of electric cars. Pew Research Center Now, at least one more Republican has soured on EVs: Trump is reportedly looking for a buyer for his red Tesla Model S after his dustup with Musk. It will take more than a thumbs-up from the White House or the enthusiastic backing of a billionaire to change Republicans' minds about technologies that help limit climate change. There are some outliers, though, like the Iowa Trump supporters who also back wind power. Related Meet the Trump supporters who love wind energy But the momentum behind these tools is massive and mounting. Wind, solar, EVs, and grid batteries have all seen tremendous price drops, huge performance gains, and surging deployment in recent years. The Trump administration's policies could sap some of this momentum, but they can't stop it.
