Employee Wellbeing in Search of a Revolution

Employee wellbeing has become more important within this year of Covid. In addition to the availability of Covid vaccines, the health of employees and their families, and a healthy physical and work environment, employee happiness is also become more fundamental. 

Maintaining happy employees has traditionally been supported by meaningful employee development, demonstrated training & support, a fun work environment, rewards & recognition, meaningful ambitious work & goals, and healthy employees. Their continual delivery is the subject of this brief.  

The Age of Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries) advanced the quest for happiness. For example, Common Sense and the American Crisis, the first two signifiant pamphlets written by Thomas Paine, are credited with the notion of “We the People” and “Pursuit of Happiness”, necessitating the empowerment of the citizenry and removal of monarchy as a significant impediment to attaining self-actualization and happiness. Written in France during its revolution Paine’s Rights of Man and Age of Reason further advanced the cause while he participated in yet another revolution that gave great worry to England’s oligarchy fearful they were next.

More recently, Tony Hsieh famously set entirely new heights for employee happiness at Zappos. In Delivering Happiness, A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose he wrote about the combination of physical synchrony with other humans and being part of something bigger than oneself leading to a greater sense of happiness and that the PLUR (peace, love, unity, respect — the basis of the rave scene as a spicy modern-day version of similar experiences that humans have been having for tens of thousands of years) is the paramount goal to attain and maintain happy workplaces and employee wellbeing.

Tony also spoke about Personal Emotional Connection (PEC) with fellow employees and clients as another pillar for personal happiness, made possible by empowering every employee to take responsibility first hand after receiving plenty of training. 

The recent union drive at Alabama Amazon highlights the expected resurgence in American unionization, including the expectation of greater employee wellbeing standards. Its doubtful Amazon would ever open in Bhutan, the originator of Gross National Happiness (GNH), a theme now within its constitution thanks to 4th king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck who in 2006 abdicated to his son to launch a constitutional monarchy, ushering in greater citizenry self-empowerment GNH in “Pursuit of Happiness”.

30 years ago the hotel Day Spa began about the same time as the Business Center, both viewed as important ways to boost hotel loyalty and income with additional services. While the lap top computer and smart phone replaced the ubiquitous Business Center, hotel Day Spas have morphed into destination spas, retreat centers and luxury brand experiences. The question is why haven’t they also expanded into employee healthcare?

Employee Wellbeing in Search of a Revolution — In north Tanzania I established the first employee integrated (allopathic and naturopathic) medicine clinic delivering primary health care to the employees and their families, located within the staff canteen and classroom building next to the volley ball court surrounded by the new employee staff housing village. Next, the clinic developed wellbeing consultations, phytomedicine and treatments for the traveling clientele delivered in experientially designed guest rooms.  

The employee is at the center of health care. The clinic addresses the full range of physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and environmental influences that affect a person’s overall wellbeing, first for the staff, next for the client. 

Omotanashi is a Japanese term for totally-empowered anticipatory honest service rendered without pretentiousness or expectation of thanks. To achieve Omotanashi an entire Ecosystem must be nurtured and developed.

Like permaculture, an Ecosystem comprising multiple elements is required. At Zappos it starts with selecting new staff for a well-established workplace culture. At my Harmony Projects staff are auditioned for creativity, musical performance, confidence, and positive optimism (personalities can be technically trained).Once appointed, every staff member writes and updates their own job description, and is incentivized to exceed their own goals and standards. All staff are cross-trained in multi-task, leadership posts doubled-up to maximize Personal Emotional Connection (PEC) opportunities with redundancy to maximize staffing flexibility. Frequent staff-staff and staff-client performance events occur generating merriment. Importantly, everyone must be ready to embrace opinionated, highly critical and bottom-up oriented performers. We emphasize meaningful employee development, demonstrate training & support, generate a fun work environment, and reward & recognize.

Revolutionary Workplace Culture — Upon recruiting the most creative, confident and over-achieving staff (note the leadership profiling language) the workplace culture desires and supports individuals to be continually challenged to stay ahead of mutual expectations. Workplace culture reinforces constructive workplace values, with systems for retention and ever-empowering leadership at every level. The term revolution implies constant change and kaizen (good-change, continuous improvement), yes another helpful Japanese term. This one credited to the American Dr. Edwards Deming who, with others, helped in the rebuilding of Japan post-WWII. The organization projects audacious goals and objectives, not just in terms of superior quality and output, but by establishing the means for clients and employees to attain life-changing objectives through superior health.

Vishen Lakhiani with MindValley provides welcome validation. He too speaks about hiring attitude, creating personal connections at the workplace, infusing meaning with Massive Transformational Purposes (MTP) with audacious goals both for the company by each employee which the organization revolves to facilitate. And finally, give-back. The organization and each employee are intertwined in the permaculture of interdependence motivated for profit and for the public good.

Creativity, confident, self-starting employee wellbeing demands Personal Emotional Connection (PEC) for continuous change, a healthy family and environment. Let the revolution begin!