Happy Hour is 9 to 5 (11 page)

In studies that ask people what makes them happy at work, job security often figures high on the list. It’s obvious that spending each workday in fear of being fired will make you desperately unhappy. However, the kind of job security that means you’re almost certain to hang on to your job no matter what happens is also bad for people’s happiness at work.

Rosenbluth International, a US corporate travel agency that employed 6,000 people, faced this very dilemma. As an organisation, they had decided to put their people first and make their employees’ happiness the company’s top priority. But, if you’ve put your people first, how can you fire them?

CEO Hal Rosenbluth did not see this dilemma. To him, putting your people first entails a responsibility to fire people who don’t fit in. Employees shouldn’t be fired at the first sign of trouble — training, coaching, guidance, or a new position inside the company could help to motivate them. However, when these things don’t work, a commitment to your employees’ happiness means that you have to fire employees that don’t fit in. Too much job security will actively make an organisation a less happy place to work. When people stay working in jobs where they don’t fit in, you get:

• Lower performance.
  
• Higher workloads.
  
• More conflicts.
  
• Apathy.
  

Allowing an employee to stay in a job that doesn’t make that employee happy is not only bad for the employee, but for everyone around that person. The unhappy employee will perform poorly, and their unhappiness at work will spread like a contagious disease.

Too little job security makes us unhappy at work because it leads to fear, avoidance of conflicts and stress. However, surprisingly, too much job security is also bad, leading to apathy, cynicism

4. Warning: may cause severe unhappiness

We’ve looked at what we think makes us happy at work but doesn’t, and what actually makes us happy. But what makes us unhappy at work, and what can we do about it?

You can look at the things mentioned in Chapter 2. Results and relationships make people happy at work, and their absence makes people unhappy. Imagine going to work every day knowing that you will not make a difference and that you will spend the day around people who don’t much care for you. Not an enticing prospect, huh?

However, aside from a lack of these positive factors, what are the major things that make us miserable on the job?

Bad bosses

“I used to be the Public Relations Coordinator and Editor for a local non-profit organisation. A couple of months before I threw in the towel my grandmother became very ill. After a phone call from a family member I was told to come to her bedside, as death was imminent.

I told my boss that I needed to leave for a family emergency and explained the situation and how close I was to my grandmother. My boss replied, “Well, she’s not dead yet, so I don’t have to grant your leave.” And I was told to complete my workday. Suffice to say I did not finish my workday
⁸
.”

The uncontested, number-one reason why people are unhappy at work is bad management. Nothing has more power to turn a good work situation bad than a bad boss. Sadly there are quite a lot of them around. A British study accused 1 in 4 bosses of being bad, while a Norwegian study said 1 in 5.

According to workplace researchers Sharon Jordan-Evans and Beverly Kaye, when people quit, they don’t leave a company, they leave a bad boss. Surveys show that up to 75% of employees who leave their jobs do so at least in part because of their manager. In the exit interview dutifully performed by HR, employees may say that they got a higher salary or a shorter commute out of the switch, but in anonymous surveys the truth comes out: my bad boss drove me away.

The reason that having a bad manager is so bad for us is that managers have power over us. Managers can change our work situation, allocate us good or bad tasks, and, ultimately, fire us. This power imbalance is why a good relationship with your manager is so important.

What kind of manager makes people unhappy at work? A bad manager does not practice the things that make people happy at work from Chapter 2. Bad managers don’t let people get results and relationships. Know any managers like that? Are you that manager, at least some of the time?

Managers face pressure to create an innovative and creative culture, one that allows employees to realise their full potential. A good manager should motivate rather than command, coach rather than control. This is possible, but only when employees are happy at work, meaning that managers must learn this new leadership style.

However, there’s very little established education available on this new leadership style. So, let’s cut our leaders and managers some slack. Many of them are trying hard to learn a way of working that is new to everyone.

How to deal with a bad boss

If you have a bad relationship with your boss it’s vitally important that you do something about it as soon as possible. It can be tempting to wait, thinking that it might get better on its own, or that your boss might be promoted or transferred, or leave. Don’t wait — do something! Here are the steps you must take.

1. Classify your boss.

Which of these three categories does your bad boss fall into?

A) Doesn’t know they’re bad.

B) Knows they’re bad and wants to improve.

C) Doesn’t want to know they’re bad or doesn’t want to improve.

Some managers who make their employees unhappy are simply unaware of this fact — nobody has ever told them that what they do isn’t working. Some managers know that what they’re doing is wrong and are trying to improve — these people need our support and good advice.

And then there’s the third category: those who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that they’re bad leaders, or who revel in the fact that they make people unhappy at work. These managers are usually beyond helping and may never learn or improve. Get away from them as fast as you can.

2. Let your boss know what they could do better.

Presuming your boss is in category A or B, you must let them know what they can improve. This can be scary because of the power imbalance between managers and employees, but it needs to be done. Managers aren’t mind readers, and they need honest, constructive feedback.

3. Assume no bad intentions.

While some of the things your boss does may make you unhappy at work, it is probably not why they do them. Assume that they mean well and are simply unaware of the effects of their actions.

4. Choose the right time to talk.

In the middle of a meeting or as a casual hallway chat are not the best ways to approach the subject. Make sure you’re in a quiet undisturbed place and have time to talk about it fully.

5. Do it sooner rather than later.

It’s incredibly tempting to wait and see if it gets better. Don’t. Raise the issues when you notice them.

6. Explain the effects on you and the effects on your work.

Be specific and tell your manager, “When you do X it makes me do Y, which results in Z.”

7. Suggest alternatives.

If you can, explain what they could do instead and why that would be better. Suggesting specific alternatives makes it easier to make positive changes.

8. Praise your manager regularly.

When your boss gets it right, remember to praise him. Many managers never receive praise because people mistakenly believe that praise should only flow from managers to employees.

You may be nervous about approaching your manager and giving him or her advice, but good managers are truly grateful for constructive, useful feedback, and will appreciate any opportunity they get to learn how to do a better job.

Difficult co-workers

Another typical cause of unhappiness at work is difficult people. Abrasive, annoying, argumentative jerks exist everywhere — including at work.

The tips in the previous section for dealing with bad bosses work equally well for dealing with these people. The main point remains the same: do something and do it now. Do not wait for the problem to go away on its own, no matter how tempting this may be.

The cult of overwork

In a feature article on workplace role models, CNN asked 12 well-known leaders, including Carlos Ghosn of Nissan, Marissa Mayer formerly of Google and famous jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, how they manage their time and stay efficient
⁹
. My favorite answer is as follows:

“I know that it’s normal for executives to start the day extremely early, but frankly I feel I make better decisions and relate better to people when I’m well rested. So I usually get up around 8 after a good night’s sleep.

I also make sure to work a standard 40-hour week and never work on the weekends. This is important to me for two reasons. First of all, I have a life outside of work. I have a family who likes to have me around, and friends and hobbies that I also want to have time for. I find that the time I spend outside of work recharges my batteries, expands my horizons, and actually makes me more efficient at work.

Secondly, if I’m always seen arriving at the office at 6 in the morning and leaving at 9 in the evening, not to mention taking calls and writing emails late at night and all weekend, it’s sure to send a signal to my employees that this is what the company expects, that this is “the right way”. But it isn’t.

It’s a simple fact that for most leaders and employees, the first 40 hours they work each week are worth much more to the company than the next 20, 30 or 40 hours. But those extra hours spent at work can harm your private life, your family and your health. Which in turn becomes damaging to the company.

Frankly, if you can’t structure your time so your work fits inside a 40-hour week, you need to get better at prioritising and delegating.”

Refreshing words. Guess which of the leaders said that?

NONE OF THEM.

Instead, there’s a lot of, “I get up at 5 and arrive at the office at 6,” “I work 16 hours a day,” “I take a lot of calls on the drive in to the office,” and “I usually leave the office at 7 and then work a few more hours in the evening at home.”

I fully expected one of them to say, “I get up at 4 in the morning, half an hour before I go to bed, and work a 27-hour day, only stopping for a 3-minute lunch break in which two assistants stuff food down my throat like a
foie gras
goose.”

This is the Cult of Overwork, the belief that the more hours you work, the better. In extreme cases this results in what the Japanese, the world champions of long work hours, call
karoshi
— death by overwork. If you’re behind at work, the solution is rarely to work more. Most of us, a few supermen and -women aside, accomplish no more in 60, 80 or 100 hours a week than we do in 40. While we may initially and for a short time get a little more work done in 80 hours than 40, there’s a cost to making this the norm: