Page 135 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

Employees Want and Need a Manager Who Cares 115

know I’d still be there. He’s the one who created the high-
morale atmosphere and made us all feel special, not the agency
itself,” emphasizes Thompson. “He gave each employee a soft

place to fall in a sometimes hard place to do business.”
Thompson says he gets sick and tired of reading about how
managers have to be continually convinced that employees are
really more interested in how they’re being treated than in a

bigger paycheck. “When you think about it, most employees
want the same basic things from their managers that kids want
from their parents—love, clear and consistent expectations,
trust, and encouragement
and support for their
Gallup Gets It
growth and development.”
The Gallup Organization
He adds, “It seems simple
knows that the greatest
but it’s very powerful at
source of satisfaction for workers is
the same time because both emotional and personal.
when managers can give According to this highly reputable

these things to their organization, the single most impor-
employees, they create an tant variable in employee productivity
emotional tie that is very and loyalty isn’t money or benefits,
but rather the quality of the relation-
strong and really gets peo-
ship between employees and their
ple excited and enthusias-
supervisors and managers.
tic about their work.”

What Do Employees Want Most?

It’s time managers started quarreling with conventional wisdom
when it comes to what they think employees want most from
their jobs in order to be fulfilled and happy. This point is well

made in the book First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s
Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and
Curt Coffman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999).
After 25 years and interviews with one million workers, the

duo developed 12 key questions that address the most desir-
able and emotional outcomes of employees, giving managers
the opportunity to get a handle on their employees’ greatest
internal and emotional needs. Buckingham and Coffman believe