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How do your employees describe working for you? Goffee and Jones in the May 2013 Harvard Business Review provide ideas on Creating the Best Workplace on Earth. What employees really require to be their most productive.  Please read the entire article as I am only going to highlight selected areas.

They describe the following six areas that are needed for the “organization of your dreams”

• Let people be themselves or nurture individual differences
  • Tap the full range of your staffs’ knowledge and talents.
  • Leaders make clear their expectations, but individuals decide how to meet them. Use self-determination, which means having employees set their own path and be accountable for their success.
  • Your staff should feel that friends and family would recognize them at work if they are comfortable being themselves
• Unleash the flow of information which is not spun
  • Do not deceive, stonewall, distort or spin information but rather be entirely candid, complete, clear and timely. Recognize that in the age of Facebook, WikiLeaks, and Twitter you are better telling people the truth before someone else does.
  • Be sure your people feel you want to hear bad news. Be careful how you respond so the input continues
• Magnify people’s strengths or add value to your employees rather than just “using them”
  • Facilitate everyone developing their skills
  • Weak employees are either developed or moved on
• Stand for something meaningful or make them proud to work here
  • People desire to be part of something bigger than themselves. Have all employees participated in developing/updating the vision/mission.
  • Do your employees like to tell people where they work
  • Ensure that even the central staff and all pharmacy technicians know the value of their work
• Show how the daily work makes sense and is intrinsically rewarding
  • Employees should feel that their duties makes sense to them
  • The work gives them energy and pleasure
  • They know how their job fits in with everyone else’s
  • The culture is everyone’s job is necessary
• Have rules people can believe in or there are no stupid rules
  • When was the last time you ask what no longer makes sense
  • Are things kept simple
  • Are rules are clear and apply equally to everyone with no double standards
  • Do you resist red tape

Please feel free to add your comments so we all continue to learn from each other.