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Workplace Fairness
Workplace fairness is something employees desperately want and executives, managers and business owners think they give.
But when a Gartner HR research finds 82% of employees report their working environment lacks fairness and last year’s State of the Workplace Gallup polls finds 59% of workers being disengaged, or “quiet quitting” in Gallup’s 2023 parlance, and another 18% being actively disengaged, or just plain miserable at work and “loud quitting” it’s time to take a closer look at workplace fairness and why so many employees feel they’re not experiencing it.
What You’ll Discover About Workplace Fairness:
* The phenomenal bottom line benefits of high employee engagement
* The critical role workplace fairness plays in employee engagement
* Why fairness is a reasonable expectation
* The misunderstood role of the implied social contract in workplace fairness
* And much more.
Host Hanna Hasl-Kelchner
Hanna Hasl-Kelchner is a champion for fairness in the workplace. She helps organizations gain clarity to make more informed decisions by reducing complex concepts into sensible, bite size pieces. Hanna accomplishes this as a business strategist and through her writing, speaking, consulting, and popular syndicated podcast, Business Confidential Now.
Hanna brings a unique perspective to the table, growing up in an entrepreneurial family and running a business before age 30 and blending it with decades practicing business law. Those experiences enabled her to successfully bridge the gap between the two disciplines during her career as a trusted advisor to influential decision makers ranging from startups to the S&P 500, Big Tobacco, and the White House. She has also been on the faculty at two top-ranked MBA programs: The Duke University Fuqua School of Management and the University of Virginia, Darden School of Business.
Related Resources:
If you liked this interview, you might also enjoy our other Leadership and Management episodes.
Contact Hanna and connect with her on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Her new book Seeking Fairness at Work is available wherever books are sold starting April 18, 2024.
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Unveiling the Truth: Workplace Fairness Myths vs Reality
Workplace fairness is something employees desperately want, and executives, managers and entrepreneurs genuinely think they provide. But when Gartner HR research finds that 82% of employees report their working environment lacks fairness, and last year’s state of the workplace Gallup poll finds 59% of workers being disengaged or quiet quitting, and another 18% being actively disengaged or just plain miserable at work and loud quitting probably is time to take a closer look at workplace fairness, and why so many employees feel they’re not experiencing it.
This is Business Confidential Now with Hanna Hasl-Kelchner helping you see business issues hiding in plain view that matter to your bottom line.
Welcome to Business Confidential Now, the podcast for smart executives, managers and entrepreneurs looking to improve business performance and their bottom line. I’m your host, Hanna Hasl-Kelchner. And today I’m going to do something different.
I’m going to give you a sneak preview of my upcoming book, Seeking Fairness at Work Cracking the New Code to Greater Employee Engagement, Retention, and Satisfaction. It will be available starting April 18th wherever books are sold.
Besides hosting this podcast, some of you may not realize that I’m also a business strategist and a retired attorney. I’ve written this book because frustrated employees shared their feelings of helplessness and anger with me many times over the years. They were upset about organizations willful blindness to management behaviors that just torch their dignity, confidence, and their psychological safety.
And when raising issues about one senior vice president, for example, to the head of human resources at a manufacturing company, one employee was essentially shooed away. It’s worse in other departments, they were told. So they consulted a lawyer. I mean, you know, it just gets ridiculous at some points.
That’s just one example of the misguided leadership behaviors I’ve witnessed over the years. And they damage trust and they have unintended negative consequences. Did they always turn into a lawsuit? No, but a lot of them could have. And even if they didn’t, they just were costly in terms of diminished employee engagement, retention and definitely satisfaction.
And that’s why I wrote Seeking Fairness at Work to get to the bottom of this mess, to demystify the notion of workplace fairness, whether it’s reasonable to expect and how to determine what it is.
My goal with the book is to help employees recognize they’re not alone in feeling frustrated at work, and that their expectations of fairness are actually very reasonable. It’s about being human, and at the same time, the book offers managers a valuable roadmap, a practical one to change and unlock and unleash the amazing talent they already have on the payroll so that they can take their organization to the next level of productivity and success.
Today is the first part of the five part series devoted to employee engagement, and we’re going to start with why engagement is such a nagging problem for organizations and how to change the conversation about it.
Now, it’s pretty well known that high employee engagement is incredibly powerful. That’s why they want it, right? Research shows that those who have highly engaged workforces experience 2.6 times higher earnings per share, double the net income seven times greater five year total annual shareholder return 19.2. Higher growth in annual operating income triple the profit growth compared to their competitors. Double the customer loyalty and employee productivity, and 87% less employee attrition. In other words, greater retention.
Now those are impressive numbers. What’s not to like about them? Nothing, right? Who wouldn’t want that? So why is high employee engagement so elusive and employee retention in our post-pandemic labor market a continuing challenge?
Well, let’s start with this notion of workplace fairness. Some of you may see it as a pipe dream, as unattainable and unrealistic because, well, life’s unfair, right? Why should the workplace be any different? And besides, what’s fair for you may not be fair for me, so we’ll never really get to an agreement on what’s fair. That’ll be all for now. Dismissed.
Well, not so fast.
Fairness is a universal human value. It transcends cultures around the world. As children, we understand the concept implicitly. Think about it. When kids want to join a new game on a playground, what do they do? They ask, how do you play? And rightly so. They want to know the rules. They want to know what’s expected of them, what they can expect from others, and what to expect as an outcome. They want to know how they should relate to one another, to move the ball forward, to reach the goal and score the points. After all, who doesn’t want to advance to win? Nobody.
It doesn’t take long for them to figure out who plays by the rules, who doesn’t, and who makes it up as they go along and when expectations are unmet or become moving targets. Indignant howls of oh, that’s not fair and cheater quickly fill the air. And when the foul is really bad and continuous, the game is not fun anymore. The kids take their ball and go home. It’s very simple.
You know, fairness is a reasonable expectation. When we’re expected to work together. It’s the glue that binds us.
Now, the grown up version in the workplace follows a similar emotional arc, but it differs in important ways because, let’s face it, employees are never more engaged at work than on their first day at a new job. Right? You’ve got a new opportunity. You’re hopeful this is going to be great because with excitement, enthusiasm and maybe a little touch of trepidation because nobody wants to offend somebody higher up by breaking an unwritten rule. So new hires in particular are on high alert.
It can take weeks, months and even years for employees to figure out how things really work at an organization. And when they do, they may be reluctant to call out any workplace unfairness if they discover it, I should say, when they discover it. Because after all, the workplace is a different ball game. Temper tantrums, name calling that can destroy your reputation in a heartbeat and get you fired. And besides, maturity makes us more resilient. We still don’t like unfairness, even though we may put up with it for various reasons, but it’s still stressful and it gnaws at us.
I mean, just think about the lyrics of Dolly Parton’s song 9 to 5. No, I’m not going to sing it for you, but I am going to say the words.
Workin’ 9 to 5.
What a way to make a living.
Barely getting by. It’s all taken and no givin’.
They just use your mind and they never give you credit.
It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it.
So yeah, it drives employees crazy because the kid in all of us still hurts. We may be adults and have thicker skins, but we never, never lose our ability to recognize unfairness or experience it. The hurt can run deep.
Employees just take their ball home differently. They may be less emotionally present, exploit attendance or time off policies. Arrive late, leave early. Surf the internet for personal use on company time. Not take initiative. Maybe do the bare minimum. Right? That’s that quiet quitting people talk about.
Okay, so where do all these workplace expectations of fairness come from you may be wondering if you’re in a supervisory position.
Well, consider this for a minute. Employees give up a huge chunk of their time every week in service to your business. They spend more time working for you than with their loved ones, and so they want more than a paycheck in exchange for their time and talent. They want their work to matter, to be treated with respect and for management to support their job.
Great. Okay, so what exactly does that mean? Because you probably think you’re giving them all of that.
It’s simple. Employees want a number of things that include a sense of belonging.
Now if you’re listening and you’re in a supervisory role, you may already be mentally jumping up and down saying, but they do belong there on the payroll. And you’re right, money’s good, but it’s not enough.
Employees want something more. They want to be seen. They want to be respected. They want to be heard. They want to be included and accepted as human beings in something bigger than themselves. Right. The mission of your business, whatever that happens to be, they don’t want to be treated as modern day chattel because fairness is about esteem. Belonging is about respect.
These are the psychological needs and they represent a substantial non-monetary component of employee compensation. It’s about being part of a community and having contributions be recognized and appropriately rewarded. It’s about connection and overall management support that goes beyond mere dollars and cents. So what all this means for employers is that if monetary remuneration is, let’s say, X, belonging and inclusion transforms that experience from being a purely financial transaction into a social relationship, it transforms it into X plus. It’s what they expect and what they want out of an employee relationship.
Now wait, there’s more because I appreciate that management has expectations too.
And that’s only fair, right? We’re talking about fairness.
Management wants something more in exchange for the wages they pay. They want all those intangibles associated with high employee engagement. They want the enthusiasm, the loyalty, creativity, initiative, innovation and of course, high productivity. They want employees full commitment to move the business forward. So what that means for employees is that if coming to work on time and meeting job requirements is, let’s say, y, full employee engagement turns their labor into Y plus for management. That’s what management expects and wants out of the employee employer relationship.
So when the employees get X plus what they want in need and management gets Y plus what they want need, it’s really a very simple equation of x plus equals y plus. It’s the essence of a high engagement workplace relationship. And it represents a social contract.
When the social contract is talked about up front, it can be the basis of great success because everybody puts their cards on the table about what’s expected of each other. There’s no hidden aces, no surprises. And that kind of transparency is what lawyers call a “meeting of the minds.” It’s a common understanding of this is what we’re each going to do to achieve a common goal. This is how we do it. This is the outcome we’re looking for.
Some organizations claim they commit their workplace social contract to writing. They believe that having new hires sign such documents actually cements the positive behaviors and encourages a culture of trust, respect, accountability, and achievement, which is great.
Now, I personally can’t say that I ever saw such a contract when I was practicing business law. They may be out there, but they are few and far between. If you know of one, let me know because I’d love to see it.
But here’s the kicker just because a social contract isn’t written doesn’t mean it fails to exist. Because there’s still a relationship. There’s still this employer employee relationship. We’re not just all strangers passing through the night. We need to work together.
So a social contract is still there. Only now it’s implied. It arises from the very existence of the employee arrangement because people don’t stop having reasonable expectations on either side of the desk. Everyone still has their own beliefs about how things should work in the employee employer relationship, but those implied agreements just they’re treacherous by their very nature, because people make assumptions when they’re not spelled out.
And we don’t all have the exact same experiences or backgrounds. So your assumptions can be different than my assumptions. We just have different lives. So that’s where that disconnect is, what creates fertile ground for misunderstanding and disappointment. And that, my friends, is where the fun begins.
Before getting twisted up in all of this, it’s important to remember that implied social contracts are the foundation of any relationship. Think for a moment about your own friends, family, acquaintances, partners, spouses. We don’t always talk about our mutual expectations, but the people we trust are the ones who treat us fairly. You can’t have trust without fairness. Fairness is the linchpin to any relationship. You either have it or you don’t, and it ultimately determines how much you invest in the relationship.
To understand what’s happening below the surface requires a closer examination of the implied social contract that supports our relationship. That’s why next week, in the second episode of this five part series on workplace fairness and employee engagement, I’ll explain the legal basis for why employee expectations of workplace fairness persist even though the employer gets to set the rules, which some of you may be thinking like tough, my expectations win. We’ll come back to that.
So in the meantime, thanks so much for listening today. A transcript of this episode can be found in the show notes at BusinessConfidentialRadio.com. And my new book, Seeking Fairness at Work Cracking the New Code of Greater Employee Engagement, Retention and Satisfaction, is going to be available starting April 18th, so circle your calendar now.
If you found today’s episode thought provoking, please be sure to tell your friends, share a link and leave a positive review. I’ll be back next week with part two. Until then, have a great day and an even better tomorrow.
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