A recent Gallup report estimates the cost of absenteeism due to depression to 28 billion US dollars. It is not the first report nor the first time a link is made between depression (and consequently happiness) and absenteeism at work (and it direct and indirect costs). If we extrapolate these numbers for an average company of a 1000 employees, we will have, on average, 60 employees (we use de more conservative numbers and consider only people actually diagnosed and in treatment) suffering from depression having each an average of 4,3 additional days of absenteeism (the more conservative number) with a cost of 250€ per day (conservative currency conversion). If we do the math: 60 x 4,3 x 250€= 64.400,-€ per year just for absenteeism (likely to be twice the cost and to have an additional cost for loss of productivity as it was estimated by other studies).
In terms of risk management, for most large corporate of 1000 employees (or more), 65.000€ is not a number big enough to be a major concern (even if you triple the figure, what could be a more realistic estimate of the cost for large european companies, even more in Belgium where salary costs are extremely high) for risk managers. However, the financial, operational and human benefits of having happier employees might not be ignored as “happy” companies seems to have higher productivity, client satisfaction and revenue than others “less happy” organization.
Nevertheless, we do believe it is a wrong question to ask. In order to succeed, engaging an organization into a “happiness at work” journey should be a human decision based on a true believes, on inner values from senior management . Doing the things right should be the main purpose. Return on investment will “only” be the cherry on the cake.
When we talk about training, it is common to ear that they should be given on purpose. The purpose being “doing a better job”. Likely, when someone need a specific skill she/he doesn’t have yet, it is often when we can demonstrate a Return on Investment that he/she will be sent in training.
This is quite black or white. To be or not to be skilled! In real life, people may have partial skills, or a minimal level of proficiency in a skill. Sometimes they believe they have the skill and as you might know, the worse thing than not having a quality is believing you have it (so you are certain you will never get it).
Nowadays, creating documents is not the sole tasks of secretary. They don’t exist as such anymore, they are Personal Assistant. Why, because most people, including managers, create and type their documents by themselves. Reports, emails, presentations, spreadsheets, who isn’t working with those beautiful office tools? Which percentage of users are sufficiently skilled to use these tools efficiently? In 2012, I still have seen manually generated table of contents in large documents, titles underlined using underscores, mistakes in spreadsheets due to lack of knowledge of the tools or surcharged presentation missing their primary objective: convince people. OK, they are just loosing time and efficiency. As time and efficiency are money, companies are just loosing money due to the lack of training. Is it so bad? No, if you can train them now and stop loosing money.
Though, as Jack Zenger underlined it in his article “We wait too long to train our leaders“, no training is bad training, even more for soft skills. Why? Even if you are not trained, you do practice and practicing bad behaviors is fostering bad habits. With spreadsheets and word processors, it can be corrected easily. But, when it comes to soft skills, to human interactions, it is another challenge to correct bad habits. Moreover, if a manager is a lousy communicator, improving his listening and communication skills will not be the only challenge. Having his staff letting him the chance to use his new skills, to trust him might take some time. In the meantime, as you must know, your employees are living their bad managers, even if you, as a company, are proposing attractive salary or bonuses.
Most managers I know have difficulties to manage people. Budgets, programs, projects, objectives, board seems to be somehow difficult but still manageable. People? No thank you. Conflicts, competition, motivation, expectancies, turnover, headhunter recruiting your best elements, stress, emotions management… it is not an easy task to manage human. In fact, you don’t manage them, you can just love them (or hate them, but its seems less efficient). Nevertheless, as a recent article in Le Monde was pointing out: more and more managers don’t want to be managers anymore. Companies are then loosing good employees and managers.
Of course, universities and management schools don’t prepare well to this task. Even with a degree in psychology, you won’t be ready to be a manager. Of course you have natural born managers. Some of them even became great leaders and created their own companies. But, what will the 98 other procent do?
Yes, we can train them. In fact, you MUST train them. Not tommorow when they will come to you nearly burned out. No, today! Now!
But how? What do they need? After more than a couple of decade spent working for companies and organization of all sizes, I still have the feeling that, before being bad communicators, a lot of managers are bad listeners. Too often also, we find narcissistic managers, lacking empathy, certainly a good quality to find amongst leaders. Above stress management, emotion management should be also a good skill to develop. (see Daniel Goleman video below for more insight around the emotional intelligence and leadership). Being mindful does certainly helps too. A manager able to stop, take time, take some distance, will likely be more available for his collaborators, to be more creative, to listen. Honnesty, integrity is also something you expect from Managers, as you certainly already do. Nevertheless, this honnesty must encompass his relationship with all the employee. He should not be put in such position by the organization that he cannot be honnest with them (I already wrote on Corporate values, I will certainly come back to this soon).
So, to summarize, inmy top 5 of soft skills a manager should have:
Listening
Empathy
Mindfulness
Emmotional intelligence
Honnesty
As these 5 skills are thightly bound together, you might look for some holistic approach. Of course, higher in the hierarchy you start, the better.
