> If you want your employees pumped up about work, focus on treating them well not hiring cheerleaders.
How is the company supposed to know what "treating you well" means if they don't have people who try to figure out what that phrase means to each individual?
Different strokes for different folks, and all that. I'm not picking on you personally, but throughout this entire thread the sentiments I quoted above have been echoed by others.
Look at it a different way ...
A therapist on the payroll (not a cheerleader) will talk to individuals not groups, and in individual engagements will be able to figure out what "treating you well" actually means to that individual.
After all, you want to be treated well by (for example) having some leeway in adopting new tech, while the engineer next to you considers that an additional stress and for him that is "treating him badly". For him, treating him well might involve fewer hours.
Or more Pay.
Or more direct reports.
Or fewer direct reports.
Or company-funded conventions once a year.
Or fewer meetings.
Or more meetings.
Whatever activity the company did that you considered to be "treating you well", I can all but guarantee that one of your peers would consider it "treating me poorly".
Now, granted, I haven't seen the show mentioned, but I think a role along the lines of "wellness engagement and support" is probably a good idea for any company that actually wants to treat their workers well.
How else are they supposed to figure out what "well" means?
Yep, plus, "treating people well" is something that's truly difficult to scale. Think of any nationally size company that interacts with the public - hotel chains, airlines, etc. Everything is process layered on top of process layered on top of process, which helps define minimum standards, but no process can truly standardize how to go "above and beyond" because that's such an individual and in-the-moment thing.
Instructing dozens, hundreds, thousands of managers to treat their employees well wouldn't achieve anything. It's similar to how legal codes can't just prescribe "being a good person is legal, being a bad person is illegal". There's so much room for interpretation that it would be effectively meaningless.
It was a comment on a message board, not a comprehensive guide. I wasn't trying to be fully prescriptive - I was summarising and assuming some interpretation on the part of the reader.
As a line manager, ask your employees what they're looking for and provide an environment where they trust you enough to be honest. Then have an adult discussion about the feasibility of delivering what they want and whether some compromise is in order - 'more ponies' is not possible, 'more money' might engender more responsibility, 'more flexible working hours' can easily be accommodated, for example. If doing this effectively requires a therapist then perhaps the organisation should focus on coaching the managers, not the workers.
A therapist?! Good lord. Call me old fashioned but everything you've described, I would normally expect to be the responsibility of a line manager. If you need a therapist to extract that information then doesn't that indicate a dysfunctional relationship? Why can't a manager just sit down and chat with an employee about what they're looking for, like two adults diacussing someone's career aspirations? Why does it require weekly therapy sessions unless something is badly wrong?
Ever morning we look at the burn down chart. Every morning he tries to tell people to "just see if we can close a ticket because it would be good for the chart".
I've submitted feedback pointing out how negatively useful this little ritual is (because if the task was actually done we'd close the ticket, it's not not being closed just because).
That honestly sounds dreadful to me, exactly the kind of management-driven nonsense that would make me more likely to quit.
If you want your employees pumped up about work, focus on treating them well not hiring cheerleaders.