Employee Satisfaction Starts with Great Management Teams

Are your management teams cultivating a working environment which keeps your employees happy?

Since my primary function at OpenView Labs is to provide recruiting support for OpenView‘s portfolio companies, I am just as interested in keeping A-Players a part of the team once they have joined as I am in finding and hiring them. I saw an interesting article on Inc. today, called How to Keep Your Workers Happy, and it is based on Gallup researchers Tom Rath and Jim Harter’s book, Well-Being: The Five Essential Elements.
Here are a few interesting points from the article which I think expansion stage companies should consider when evaluating their management teams for their employee retention abilities:

• According to Rath, in the “best” workplaces that he and Harter studied, employees want to spend time around their bosses, because they care about them as individuals, about what’s going on in their lives, and in their career development.
• People don’t quit a company; they quit a bad manager. Are all of your managers effectively motivating their teams and creating a positive and healthy work environment? If you hear that they are not, or witness that they are not, what are you doing about it?
• Happy workers spend six hours a day socializing, both inside and outside of work. Employees who have colleagues at work that they consider friends are more likely to be highly engaged and productive. Are you creating a collegial environment in your workplace?
• Great managers have similar attributes to great teachers and to great parents in the way that they invest time in the development of their employees. They see their employees’ strengths, help them celebrate their successes, and are clear about their expectations.