Quality of management the major complaint: survey
Research conducted nearly 80 years ago could help organisations overcome the widespread employee dissatisfaction that recent surveys have uncovered, according to a management consultant who has set up an academy based on the theories.
A survey of 6506 people released by online recruitment firm Seek this fortnight found that six out of 10 employees put “quality of management” top of the list when asked if they hated anything about their jobs.
Employees nominated salary the least of five alternatives on the “what I hate about my job” list, with career development, stress levels, and feedback/appreciation all getting lower responses than management quality. Dissatisfaction with bosses was highest among workers in their 30s and in the retail, consumer products, advertising and media industries.
Louis Coutts believes the so called Hawthorne Experiments, conducted in the Western Electric Company’s factory in the Hawthorne district of Chicago in the 1920s holds the key to solving the morale problem.
He discovered the Hawthorne Experiments while on a study tour of the United States and found the work was similar to his own research on management disasters including Enron, HIH, and even the space shuttle Challenger episode.
The Hawthorne Experiments have been widely misinterpreted as a study on the effect of lighting conditions on productivity. In fact, the work by management researcher George Elton Mayo examined the effect on employee morale of recognition, security and a sense of belonging. After varying the conditions in which a group of six employees assembled telephone relays, Mayo found management attitudes were more important factors contributing to harmonious workplaces than actual working conditions.
Mr Coutts’ own interviews with employees confirmed the high levels of unhappiness with jobs revealed in the Seek survey and led him to do something about it. “It wasn’t uncommon for men as well as women to actually cry in the interviews because of the level of unhappiness in their work,” he said.
With his son Brendan, Mr Coutts has set up the Hawthorne Academy in Sydney to introduce senior executives to techniques that help them realise the benefits of greater harmony and productivity in their workplaces. The academy holds one-day workshops, which examine case studies, and the importance of values and key performance indicators.