HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (HRM) SYSTEM:
If you have employees, you will need an HRM system. Why? Because employees are the most important assets in any organization. They will help you to setup and manage all business systems so you can have profitable, sustainable business which can run without you. We suggest that your HRM system should be based upon 'The Three Signs of a Miserable Job' book by Patrick Lencioni. The 3SMJ can be managed by any generic HRM software.
With 3SMJ HRM will make sure that your employees are the right fit for the jobs, earning decent wages, and don't have the three signs of a miserable job which are: anonymous, irrelevant, immeasurable. And during the routine quarterly job feedback survey, if you find any job with any of the three signs, you should make sure that all signs are eliminated before the next quarterly survey.
- Anonymous -- People can’t be fulfilled in their work if they aren’t known. Everyone needs to be understood and appreciated by someone in authority. People who see themselves as invisible or generic will not love their jobs. No employee should be anonymous to his or her direct manager. All great managers should deeply care about the career & professional growth of their employees.
- Irrelevant -- Everyone needs to know that their job matters to someone. Without seeing a sense of connection between the work and satisfaction of another person or group of people, an employee will simply not find lasting fulfillment. Managers should make sure that all employees know the answers to 6 questions which will enable them to know where the company is heading and how their jobs are making a positive difference to external or internal customers. All great managers should excel at finding one person’s talent and turning it into performance to contribute toward the company's overall purpose.
- Immeasurable --Employees need to be able to gauge for themselves their progress and level of contribution. They won’t be fulfilled in their work if success depends on the whims or opinions of someone else. Without a tangible means for assessing success or failure, motivation eventually deteriorates as people see themselves as unable to control their own fate. All employees should be able to self-measure the status & quality of their jobs using a checklist & scorecard.
Keep these in mind while assigning an employee to a new job role:
- Wants it: Make sure the employee wants the job and has passion for it.
- Can do the job: Make sure the employee has skills to do the job or can learn the skills in a reasonable time. (If not, try to assign her another assignment)
The book author has outlined the following benefits of managing for job fulfillment:
There are significant benefits to any organization that can build a culture of job fulfillment. Employees who find their jobs fulfilling are going to work with more enthusiasm, passion, and commitment to quality than those who do not. They will develop a sense of ownership and pride in what they are doing, and will just plain work harder.
A second benefit is lower turnover: employees will hang onto fulfilling jobs as long as they can, because they know that there aren’t that many out there. (And fulfilled employees tend to attract other good employees, ultimately resulting in lower recruiting, hiring, and training costs).
Finally, a culture of job fulfillment will differentiate one company from another. In a day when technology is so pervasive, it can be hard to “stand out.” Being known as a satisfying place to work is one way to do that. Interestingly, when managers work to reduce these three signs in their organizations, they often discover that their employees begin to take a greater interest in their colleagues, help them find meaning and relevance in their work, and find better ways to gauge success. In other words, the employees themselves become re-enforcer of the culture: the employees begin taking responsibility for keeping the three signs at bay, giving the company an even greater cultural advantage.