Secrets Of America's Happiest Companies | Fast Company

“Being able to be truly happy at work is one of the keys to being happy in life,” says Heidi Golledge, CEO and cofounder of CareerBliss, an online career database. And what company couldn’t use a little more joy among its ranks?

In her book It’s Always Personal, Anne Kreamer points to recent research from Sigal Barsade of the Wharton School of Business that indicates positive moods prompt “more flexible decision-making and wider search behavior and greater analytic precision,” which in turn make the whole company more willing to take risks and be more open. On the flip side, analysis conducted by the Gallup Organization found that disgruntled employees disengage and cost the American economy up to $350 billion a year in lost productivity.

The 5 rules of happy employees.

• Happy employees don’t stay in one role for too long. Movement and the perception of improvement create satisfaction. Status quo, on the other hand, creates burnout.
• There is a strong correlation between happiness and meaning; having a meaningful impact on the world around you is actually a better predictor of happiness than many other things you think will make you happy.
• A workplace is far likelier to be a happy place when policies are in place to ensure that people regularly get acknowledgement and praise for a job well done.
• Recognize that employees are people first, workers second, and create policies that focus on their well-being as individuals.
• Emphasize work/life integration, not necessarily "balance."

What exactly makes those staffers whistle while they work? CareerBliss just released its findings on the 50 happiest companies in America. The data, based on employee-submitted reviews, evaluated the key factors such as work-life balance, one’s relationship with his/her boss and coworkers, work environment, job resources, compensation, growth opportunities, company culture, company reputation, daily tasks, and job control over work performed on a daily basis. The answer to what makes a happy company is an amalgam of all these different factors, which might indicate that companies perceived as innovative would consistently snag the top spots. Not so. Apple and Google dropped from their top 10 spots down to #42 and #18, respectively. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer climbed from #11 to take the top slot, followed by NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Steve McClatchy, founder of Alleer Training and Consulting, whose client list includes top-ranked Pfizer, says a happy workplace is one that is committed to perpetual improvement, and not just as a line item on the balance sheet. “It’s one that supports employees in achieving goals, letting them fail, and learn from that,” he says. McClatchy believes happy employees don’t stay in one role for too long. “When there is movement in your life, there is satisfaction. Status quo is what creates burnout and ruts.” He says at companies such as Pfizer, staff achieves a balance between improvement, growth, and maintenance. Work burnout isn’t about too many hours spent on the job, he contends, it's about feelings that come from improvement, or lack thereof. McClatchy points out that Pfizer regularly checks in with staff through employee surveys. “It’s a commitment to finding out obstacles to being happy. They don’t wait for exit interviews; they are proactive and continually assess their culture.” McClatchy believes a happy workplace isn’t necessarily free of conflict, either. At Pfizer, he says, management addresses conflict constructively. “It’s not with discipline but an approach that is solution-oriented.”

Work burnout isn’t about too many hours spent on the job, it's about feelings that come from improvement, or lack thereof.

Another way to reduce grumblings is to cultivate a culture of mindfulness and meaning, according to Jennifer Aaker, General Atlantic Professor of Marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business. "New research shows there is a strong correlation between happiness and meaning--in fact, having a meaningful impact on the world around you is actually a better predictor of happiness than many other things you think will make you happy," Aaker says. "When we can cultivate mindfulness and meaning in all that we do, including our work, we have the opportunity to influence not only our own well-being, but also the well-being of our family, friends, coworkers, and wider community."

Steven Cowart, manager for Visual Display Systems at NASA, agrees.
“The projects I get to work on are incredibly interesting, challenging, and critical to the success of an experiment or mission. The research facilities are unparalleled in their capabilities and the accomplishments they've helped achieve. The tools we get to work with are the best. Our simulators and trainers are like "E" ticket rides at entertainment parks. Especially the centrifuges. We get to do things I would never have imagined had I not been hired here. Things that matter. Things that inspire people. Things that change our perception of our life on Earth and our place in the universe.”

Not surprisingly, another part of joy comes from a simple pat on the back. Globoforce, a software provider of social-recognition solutions, said 82% of employees it polled said that receiving recognition makes them more satisfied with their jobs. “A workplace is far likelier to be a happy place when policies are in place to ensure that people regularly get acknowledgement and praise for a job well done, and where people feel that their happiness at work matters to their employers,” says Gretchen Rubin, author of the best-selling Happiness Project.

Dana Stocks, head of HR for Philips North America, says that the company (ranked #25 on the CareerBliss survey) took this concept a step further to make recognition more personal. “Philips has come to understand that recognition for a job well done is often more meaningful when coming in the form of peer-to-peer acknowledgment than expected manager-to-peer rewards. As a result, Philips has put in place programs and ‘culture drivers’ that help individuals create a legacy that is meaningful and energizing, beyond cash bonuses or award vouchers,” he explains.

Two programs help to reach this goal. "We are Philips" is a peer-to-peer recognition program that highlights the accomplishments of fellow employees and how they are modeling the key values and behaviors. Three times per year, winners for each behavior are announced and then showcased throughout North America to inspire others to succeed. Stocks says Philips also uses social technologies to engage with employees like the app called Connect Us (available as a desktop app and for mobile devices) to unite its global workforce by sharing knowledge insights, collaborating, and publicly showing appreciation with Thanks badges. “Any employee can show personal recognition of colleagues’ achievements,” says Stocks. Virtual high fives are limited to five per week, and the boss gets looped in, too. “Managers of employees who receive a Thanks badge will be informed by email,” he adds.

As the director of happiness at Lamp Post Group, Shelley Prevost, PhD, contends that the happiest workplaces are the ones that seriously honor the humanity of their people. “When you ‘get’ that employees are human beings first and worker bees second, you say something about their worth. Companies with happily engaged employees laugh at the rules that are more about upholding policy than caring about the well-being of others. They hire people with a capacity to care for one another, foster connectedness at every level of the company, give an inspiring vision not laced with b.s. platitudes, but about real possibilities. You want to work in these places because they make you feel purposeful, connected, and valued.

That isn’t always tied to a paycheck. Staffing and recruiting agency Adecco ranked #16 on the CareerBliss survey, even though its average salary was in some cases up to $50,000 lower than the average paycheck at companies at the bottom of the list. “Our people have a tremendous pride in Adecco and what they do for a living," says Mark Eberly, senior vice president of human resources, Adecco Group North America. "Especially in this economy, knowing that you are in the business of putting people to work is extremely gratifying, which no doubt makes for happy employees.” David Adams, vice president of learning and development, Adecco Group North America, adds that the agency gives employees opportunities for growth and flexibility. “Our commitment to professional growth includes developmental and skills training for both colleagues and associates. Additionally, we offer flexibility, including the many choices available to our temporary associates as to the times and duration they can work.”

One thing to keep in mind, says Delivering Happiness at Work’s CEO James Key Lim, one of the first employees at Zappos, is that there is no one magic bullet to guarantee happiness in the workplace. “We talk about work/life integration instead of balance,” he explains, especially when a study found that 90% of people send email on the weekends. By aligning people with their passions both on the job and in the rest of their lives, Lim says companies stand a greater chance of cultivating happy employees. “From an organizational perspective this really takes time,” Lim says, and clear, co-owned values are a must, along with consistent checks to ensure that everyone stays aligned. “The annual review is dead,” he asserts, “Happiness is a daily journey.”

[Image: Flickr user Kris Krüg]

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How Culture of Ben and Jerry's Trumped Size

In April 2000, when Unilever, the then-$45 billion Dutch-English consumer products giant, announced its acquisition of Ben & Jerry’s, the socially conscious, touchy-feely, Vermont-based ice cream maker, the general response was predictable.

“Ben & Jerry’s Sells Out” was a typical business section headline in the morning papers and on the Internet. “Everyone, it turns out, has a price,” lamented Wired magazine, while pointing out that Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the “hippies” who founded the popular brand in 1978, really didn’t want to make the deal. As the new millennium approached, giant corporate vultures were hovering above the publicly traded, under-performing Vermont institution with hungry eyes and a takeover seemed inevitable. Inside there was turmoil as some wanted to sell and others did not. Cohen and Greenfield tried to orchestrate their own buyout but could not generate an offer high enough to prevent Unilever from prevailing.

More ideas on innovation and leadership 

Cohen released a statement trying to put a positive spin on the deal. “While I would have preferred for Ben & Jerry’s to remain independent, I’m excited about the next chapter,” he said and then quoted the above Grateful Dead lyrics.

The consensus seemed to be that the deal would signal the end of Ben & Jerry’s well-established and respected triple bottom line: “Make Great Products, Deliver Solid Profitability, and Work Towards Progressive Social Change.” This was a company that donated 7.5 percent of its profits to charity, paid living wages and offered better benefits, supported local farmers and growers in Third World countries who produced some of its ingredients, and believed that its progressive social mission was as important as its profits.

Surely a conglomerate as big as Unilever had other ideas and it would undoubtedly swallow the brand, remake the culture and transform Ben & Jerry’s into a profit-driven marketing engine that would eventually become unrecognizable to its legions of fans.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the inevitable makeover. A dozen years after Unilever plunked down $326 million for the Ben & Jerry’s brand, the progressive, activist, socially responsible culture that was Ben & Jerry’s is alive, well and spreading its version of caring capitalism all over the world. And rather than crush the spirit out Ben & Jerry’s, Unilever, a $58 billion global powerhouse with more than 400 brands and 165,000 employees, has remade its own corporate mission to reflect the socially conscious ideas that Ben & Jerry’s was built upon. The very profitable tail, in this case, is wagging the extremely satisfied dog.

The Price for Sustainability 

In a departure from what happens in most acquisitions, Ben & Jerry’s was able to negotiate an agreement with Unilever that included the retention of the smaller company’s board of directors. The board’s mandate was to preserve and protect Ben & Jerry’s triple bottom line while Unilever tended to the business end of things. Granting such independence in perpetuity to an acquired company is not simply unusual, it is nearly unheard of. Even with that, the acquisition was hardly smooth, and the first eight or nine years were fraught with the usual trauma — customer dismay, layoffs, culture clashes — that wreaks havoc on most such acquisitions. Despite the pain, and with Jostein Solheim, a Unilever veteran and now Ben & Jerry’s third CEO in 10 years firmly in place, the two organizations survived most of the distress of these often-daunting couplings. Both have benefitted from the marriage.

 

“It definitely took time for the two companies to get used to each other,” said Kevin Havelock, president of Unilever’s Refreshment division, “For Ben & Jerry’s, a small company making great ice cream in Vermont, to suddenly be part of a very big company with different processes and business systems and results, it was uncomfortable at first. For Unilever, acquiring an organization that was more intuitive, more gut-feel to the way it approached things and with very strong positions on values, it wasn’t always easy. It was an up-and-down relationship, but it has held together because the social mission provided a glue, and there was good success rolling out new products and new innovations. But it’s been a real two-way learning.”

In fact, Ben and Jerry’s is not the only socially responsible player acquired by a giant company. As the global marketplace, over the past decade, has come to value companies with sustainable, green, organic, socially proactive bona fides, a long list of acquisitions have been completed with varying degrees of success. Among those acquired: Stonyfield Farm by Groupe Danone in France, Honest Tea by Coca-Cola, Tom’s of Maine by Colgate-Palmolive, Zappos by Amazon, The Body Shop by L’Oreal, cereal maker Kashi by Kellogg, Iams pet food by Procter & Gamble, Cascadian Farms by General Mills and more each year.

And what has become clear as these deals have multiplied is that success — as measured in enhanced financial results and marketplace perception — is generally based on how clearly and thoughtfully the acquiring company has considered why it is making the deal. Though this is the case in any successful merger or acquisition, it is particularly pertinent in the realm of caring capitalism.

“You have to understand what you are buying,” said Philip H. Mirvis, senior fellow at the Social Innovation Lab at Babson College and an expert on mergers and acquisitions in the CSR (corporate social responsibility) space. “You are not only buying a brand, but an organizational way of making the brand authentic. You are delivering not only a socially responsible product but one that is really good. If you don’t understand those pieces and manage that as part of the integration, you risk losing and ultimately undermining the brand.”

If a corporate giant is simply seeking a shortcut to a halo of social responsibility, these deals will inevitably be troubled. “There are plenty of companies presenting themselves as caring capitalists,” Mirvis said. “But if it is not rooted in how they make and source the product and how they really do business, then it is just a phony advertising campaign.”

Acquisitions happen for lots of reasons: quick access to new geographical markets, extensions to product lines, new technologies, scalability, enhanced revenue streams, added girth. Companies that make these kinds of CSR acquisitions are clearly looking for the profitable bump they hope to generate from consumers who are more and more often making buying decisions related to socially conscious considerations. Numerous surveys over the past decade have confirmed that a brand’s social content makes a significant difference in consumers’ purchasing decisions and that if aligned, those attributes can lead to powerful brand loyalty and increased sales. According to the Natural Marketing Institute, the LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) market was nearly $300 billion in 2008, and as the global economy continues to stir back to life, that number can only grow.

“Identifying trends and brands of the future is an amalgamation of science, art and serendipity,” said Deryck Van Rensburg, president and general manager of Venturing and Emerging Brands (VEB) at Coca-Cola. “It starts with a research-based understanding of what the consumer is looking for, as well as a point of view about where consumers are likely to be in the future. We recognize through these trends that many of our consumers’ identities are no longer defined by gender, age or geography, but by lifestyles and values. Consumers are demanding that brands go beyond benefits. They want to know how it will impact their life, community and environment.”

For many corporate giants, the lure of a fast-growing, widely admired smaller entity is too good to pass up. “There are good businesses with strong market niches and in some cases, a huge number of brand fans,” Mirvis said, “So it’s logical for companies to use these to expand their product lines and maybe even do some R&D in the socially responsible consumer space. And there is the potential that such an acquisition will somehow teach the larger company about socially responsible business and add to its reputational cachet.”

Not surprising, such corporate marriages are fraught with perils well beyond the usual M&A concerns. Most of these “do well by doing good” players prefer to remain independent and step to the beat of their own drummer. Socially responsible entrepreneurs build companies with passionate employees and a serious commitment to the triple-bottom line philosophy, and the best performers generally reflect the most committed of entrepreneurial teams. Selling the company is generally a last option in the quest for growth, scalability, broader distribution and the cash to keep building the dream.

“These are not people just looking for money,” said Gary Hirshberg, founder and chairman of Stonyfield Farm, who sold an 85 percent stake in the organic yogurt company in 2001 to giant Groupe Danone in France. “These are entrepreneurs looking to make a difference, and an acquirer has to show respect and that it understands that.” The article contiues at kornferryinstitute.com. Thank you. 

Jim Woods is about helping companies and people engage innovate and grow in all the areas important to them. Jim is a professional speaker, author, coach, and strategy consultant based in Colorado Springs, Co. Follow Jim on Twitter @innothinkgroup, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/InnoThink Group or check out his company website http://innothinkgroup.com for more tips and strategies effective leadership, engaged employees, increase growth, and customer effectiveness through innovation. To arrange for Jim to consult or speak at your event email Jim.