Web Blog 4

Title: Strategic Planning for employees Happiness: A Business Goal for Human Services Organizations

 

Summary

The Authors write an article that talks about how companies are looking into strategic plans for increasing employee happiness. The article describes how companies are realizing that a happy worker is a more productive worker. They list all of the qualities that a happy worker has and why it is a benefit to increase their satisfaction. The Authors go into great detail how some companies have added this to there business plan. The article goes into the different ways companies try to understand the Employees and the different tactics that they use to get input from the workers. They look at how the social, political and economic environment affects the worker. They show how the federal government and the local governments have stepped in to help create needed laws to protect workers rights. They look at how different personal lifestyles from heterosexual, homosexual to being a single parent or caring for an elderly parent can affect your work performance and how companies are changing to fit those needs into the company structure. They show how companies are supporting employees by creating flexible schedules and allow the employee to have take home work to allow for time off. It states that just by assessing their needs it in itself supports their happiness. Overall the article looks at how some major companies are looking to create a happy work place for their employees. The article goes into great detail about the strategies and the benefits of having happy workers and the way companies are trying to insure their employee’s happiness.

 

My Response

 

I think this was a very informative article on how companies look at increasing employee satisfaction. It has a lot of very useful information that I will use to help better understand my workers concerns. The article covered several ways that companies are working to increase their employee’s satisfaction but it does not look at how some workers may be unsatisfied with what they do. A company can give flexible schedules, free lunches and gifts but if the worker does not like the type of work he will never be satisfied. A company can do all the surveys it wants if the employee hates customer service they will always find something to complain about. It is a great that some companies will spend the money it take to increase their workers satisfaction. I am sure the employee who enjoys their work is very happy with the way the company treats them but there are always the ones who will never be satisfied. Some workers no matter what you give them will always be unhappy. Companies that invest their money in employee satisfaction are a great thing. I have always thought that corporations are corrupt and only look at their bottom line number and worry very little about the employee. It is nice to see that some companies worry about and respect the workers enough to implement such policies. I also think that companies that go to the extremes of putting employee satisfaction in their business plans and have committees that meet to discuss employee happiness are rare and this is not the way the majority of companies treat their employees’.

 

Beth Howard and Karen E. Gould” Strategic Planning for employees Happiness: A Business Goal for Human Services Organizations” American Journal on Mental Retardation 105 no5 377-86 s 2000