I’m a long-time fan of the information the Gallup Organization produces. Whether you agree with their conclusions or not, you have to admire and trust the data they gather, sometimes daily, on many different issues.
Some of that information relates to workers’ well-being — it’s their “Gallup-Healthways Well-being Index.” You can see the data by state and by congressional representative district. Hmm…
So what’s the latest? Of the 50 states, Utah has the highest well-being index with West Virginia on the bottom. My own state — Kentucky is #49.
One business-critical component of the index is “work quality.” According to Gallup,
“This Index surveys workers on several factors to gauge their feelings and perceptions about their work environment. Prior large-scale meta-analyses have shown important linkages between worker engagement and several organizational performance outcomes, such as worker attendance, retention, productivity, profitability, safety, and customer ratings. “
In other words, businesses where workers have strong positive feelings and perceptions about their work environment perform better.
So is it time to run out and have a pep rally, or a ‘rah, rah!’ session. I wouldn’t if I were you. Reality is that employees recognize real efforts to make their environment better; and they recognize the false ‘quick-fix’ solutions as well.
To truly create the work environment that drives success, spend your efforts on:
- Understanding what frustrates employees about how they are asked/required to do their job
- Learning what makes employees happy about coming to work
- Finding ways to stretch your employees in positive ways — ways that use their best abilities (and don’t spend so much time talking about what they don’t do well).
Where is your state’s Well-being index? How your district’s? What about your company’s?
Check out the interactive Well-being index here.
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