

Easy Ways to Show Your Employees You Love Them - carusen
http://mashable.com/2011/02/03/love-your-employees/

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bartonfink
Why should I want my employer to 'love' me? There are several things I want
from my employer, but none of them are anywhere near 'love' and especially not
the sort of 'love' that this hints at.

Primarily, I want my employer to provide a structure within which I can do my
work with a minimum of hassle. I want to be paid well and regularly. I want no
surprises when it comes to health-care or other benefits. I want, within
reason, to be able to put my job aside for personal matters that I deem more
important - we usually call this 'personal leave' in the US. I want a
comfortable, arms-length working relationship where I can work hard as needed
to get a job done and then leave.

I do NOT want my employer actively trying to become my friend. I do NOT want
my employer asking me to share my taste in music with the rest of the office,
nor do I care about everybody else's tastes. I do NOT want "team-building"
exercises or structured activities which are meant to help me work better with
people. I definitely don't want my employer to 'love' me. To hell with that.

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dabent
"I do NOT want my employer actively trying to become my friend."

Exactly, and a variation on that is on the front page here today (VCs Are Not
Your Friends). You might be on friendly terms you your employer, but it's
primarily a business relationship.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2174722>

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brd
I would disagree with #5 on that list. In my experience a request from a boss
will most likely be misinterpreted (to some degree at least) as an attempt to
spy on you.

Also, many people are starting to learn that keeping your professional and
personal networks separate is a good thing so having a blanket statement of
"boss's should friend employees" is a little misguided.

In either case it will create an unnecessarily dilemma for the employee. And
its worth noting that there is a growing list of people who have lost their
jobs because of Facebook.

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KMStraub
A friend and I just had a discussion about this last night. I can't say I've
bothered to do it, but she says she just adjusts her privacy filter so that
everyone in her company network can only see her picture and where she lives.
I've been nervous to friend anyone I've met through work, but she doesn't seem
to stress at all about this issue. Thoughts?

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brd
If you take the time to group your friends and carefully tend to your privacy
settings its not a problem. Facebook is actually highly configurable in this
sense, its very easy to maintain multiple networks on it if you really want
to.

The reason I don't try to do this is because of Facebook's track record of
change privacy settings first, ask questions later. I wouldn't want to have
all my carefully filtered information exposed for any period of time, no
matter how brief, but there is no way to guarantee this won't happen as long
as Facebook places privacy games.

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KMStraub
Thanks, and interesting. I hadn't thought of that. I suppose the fact that I
didn't even know I could do that--and that it's actually quite easy,
functionally, as you say--also suggests some marketing issues? I just felt it
was weird that I've been hearing so much hullabaloo about the facebook
quandary of business contacts learning too much about your personal life and
vice versa due to blanket "friending," but yet, it took only 2 seconds for my
friend to shut me up, saying, "I don't have that problem, here's why."

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com
The list is quite revealing - it gives away some of the "command and control"
tendencies in some (US?) businesses.

Some of the suggestions are astonishing (I work in Europe and can't conceive
of a non-customer facing/low security role where personal phones are, or even
should, be banned).

Others are appallingly cheesy, friending your employees on Facebook, really?

What about the ones that I personally really appreciate:

1\. Personal recognition from management for work well done

And I don't mean "employee of the month" plaques - more a senior stakeholder
that pops by with the mission to shake my hand and mention why the work was
important for our shared business goals.

2\. Acknowledgement of serious commitment to shared goals

Even better is the PA to the CEO who wanders through the building after the
early shutdown time on Christmas Eve or other local equivalent to find out
who's still working, and comes back with a small gift hamper full of little
items like gourmet jam, already wrapped with easy-remove numbered stickers and
a master list of the contents, to take the stress out of last-minute shopping.
Honestly, I would have taken a 20% paycut from them after that with a smile.

3\. Flexibility flexibility flexibility

Most of my work experience has been in organisations that ask for flexibility
from staff - illegal (only in parts of the EU!) numbers of hours to be worked
during crunches, "temporary" incomplete or unfit-for-purpose work process
changes, spontaneous and badly thought through changes of focus and priority
to keep the financial markets happy etc.

I really appreciate the flexibility right back: a parent suffering terminal
illness on the other side of the world demands significant blocks of time away
from project activities. I was extremely gratified that my direct HR line
manager and program leads let me know that they'd move heaven and earth to
make it possible. I worked while I was away to keep things on track and
committed to stay on board for significantly longer than I'd planned.

4\. Fair pay for hard work

Enough said.

5\. A little thought about impacts of business decisions

Sometimes there are problems. You need to fly out at short notice and it may
be that you'll be on the road for a month or two. This isn't part of your job
description.

What really worked for me was when my boss asked about the impact on my home
life. And when HR asked me whether to send flowers every Friday on my behalf
to my spouse. And our local logistics people offered their help if we needed
someone to be at home for things like visits from the gas company.

These things cost very little, are genuine and not cheesy and are not sensible
removals of dumb authoritarianism.

This is how you show your employees that you value them and their commitment
to your shared goals.

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yummyfajitas
A single easy way to show your employees you love them: don't actively try to
interfere with their lives or attach unnecessary restrictions on their work
patterns.

I'll only comment on one specific suggestion: _The varied music taste of your
staff will no doubt surprise you._

Ok, my playlist consists of Yngwie Malmsteen, Rammstein and NIN. Another
employee's playlist consists of Dido and Celine Dion. This is going to end
well.

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ebaysucks
Every employee should blog? The horror. The author needs to keep in mind:

1\. Not everyone is an extrovert 2\. Not everyone philosophizes about his job
3\. There are tons of companies doing fine without a blog - and they don't
blog about it ;)

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imack
In the tech world, if blocking social networks means your employees can't
access social networks, it means you've hired the wrong employees.

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elbelcho
I'd add "2+ monitors for all knowledge-workers and above" to that list.

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Splines
The first four are basically "get the best tools for your employees, and stay
out of the way".

And location-based achievements? No thanks, I'm not here to punch a time
clock.

The rest of these seem like an odd choice. If you're going to get into these
sorts of specifics (share a music playlist!), there's probably hundreds, if
not thousands of possible suggestions (eat lunch together! respect your
employees privacy! flexible working hours! nice chairs! holiday party! etc.
etc. etc.)

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jsavimbi
#1 - Agreed. #2 - Mandate a set of browsers if you work in a tech company that
produces a web app, otherwise in a large enterprise you'll have a lot of
security concerns and the bearded suspenders in IT will lunch you. #3 - Give
parents the opportunity to shirk work and burden their childless colleagues?
Awesome idea. If you make #3 a company-wide policy for everyone, you'll make
redundant the other nine items in this post. #4 - Only works with serious,
well-trained and educated employees. If you have a ban on them in the first
place, aside from security reasons, you're not working in a place that puts
the employee ahead of anything. #5 - You're out of your mind. #6 - Will be
used with less frequency as a normal social network but can easily be used to
facilitate offline communication, but also subjected to the same hierarchy
forces found in the org chart. Not a long-term solution. #7 - This only works
if you have a small group of people with similar interests. Can easily become
a distraction. #8 - I'm not child, don't treat me like one by suggesting I
engage in games that have hidden morality lessons. #9 - Great, phone and email
from random recruiters will increase tenfold. #10 - Great if you can get the
c-level to think that they don't have all the answers. Also, as soon as
tickets pile up, they'll assign handling it to the IT manage it via HR and
they'll treat it like yet another ticketing system.

Overall, I see these recs as 2-3 out of 7.

