Universal Worker Desires
by Miki Saxon
After all that’s been written and discussed it shouldn’t surprise you to know that most people crave a positive corporate culture and an open-door policy, but would it surprise you that this desire isn’t a product of the US or even the industrialized west?
Yesterday I mentioned I would share a universal truth from an unlikely source.
A positive corporate culture (40% of respondents) and an open-door policy (100%) are the two key elements of an ideal workplace, according to a recent region-wide human resource (HR) survey conducted by IIR Middle East.
Employee engagement and transparency were also found to be essential to enhanced employee performance within an organizational culture.
One of the reasons I find this so intriguing is not so much the desires themselves, but the local in which they are found.
Granted, my knowledge of the Middle East is limited, but the prevailing customs and culture don’t seem particularly conducive to the development of that kind of MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) in management
(And this has nothing to do with an Islamic vs. Judeo-Christian sub-text.)
Workers all seem to want the same thing, whether in the Mid-East, North and South America, Europe, Russia, India or Asia.
Of course, the surface results of implementing those desires might look different, but the basic cravings that drive them are the same, as is the main stumbling block—management.
Changes in transparency, door policy, not killing the messenger, etc. require changes in managers’ MAP and those changes can not be ordered or implemented from the outside in.
Flickr image credit: FlyingSinger
November 1st, 2011 at 4:00 am
What about Japan?
Workers can’t complain about management there.
AFAIK it violates Japan’s traditions.
November 1st, 2011 at 9:20 am
You bring up a good point, but Japan is changing, too. Workers are becoming more vocal about problems and more willing to vote with their feet. The changes are slower there, but they are happening. Just because the changes are slower and may not play out the way they do here doesn’t mean that workers don’t want them.
Thanks for taking time to add to the dialog.