This week will be marked by long gray days of boredom and repitition interrupted with acts of sabotage and a few brief shining moments. Most of this will go unrecognized, the good and the bad. It's just easier to digest canned dog food in the corporate lunchroom and blame the server.
Overall
Small thunderstorms will sweep through your office, about 19% of the times, brought about by uncertain, erratic outbursts of sabotage from those disengaged employees. Most will go unrecognized, just as the achievements and strengths of those in your company go unrecognized.
A few more moments of sunshine and excitement will outnumber them, though. 30% of the week, a day and a half, as those employees still engaged with their work drive the accomplishments and highlights for the week. As a manager or executive, these will pass unnoticed, unrecognized, too.
The remainder of the week, will be marked by unbroken clouds of disinterest, boredom and barely going through the motions.
Day to Day
Monday - Cloudy and stormy with a few thunderstorms rumbling down the hallways and over the cubicles as the CEO's pay is announced. It's 331 times that of your average employee's salary.
Tuesday - Your corporate communications office records your latest stock valuations, revenues and cash reserves in press releases and SEC filings. All three are at record highs. Your employees have seen it before. Same ol, same ol. Right?
Pay raises will remain 3% on average, down from the gratuitously high amounts of 5% in 2011.
Wednesday - hump day, middle of the week.
Morning: The low-front of Monday and Tuesday's announcement wil have passed leaving before lunch, leaving the same sullen, cloudy, weather marked with scattered acts of sabotage mixed with a few shining moments
Those actively disengaged (19%), the ones sabotaging work, will be conflicted. Only two days left in the week to do their dirty work and get paid!
The engaged employees, about 30%, will be satisfied with their accomplishments so far this week and happy that two more days remain. And then there's the weekend.
The majority of your employees, 70%, will be humming Loverboy's Working for the Weekend as they work.
If you notice, which our forecasts based on over a decade of research says you won't, you'll assume they're happy at their work.
Afternoon:
Pockets of thunderstorms will be vary in their intensity from loud and outspoken to sullen and dispirited. A outbursts of cynical laughter and eye-rolling will be heard in meetings.
Business reporters tout your leaders wise priorities as they discuss your investment programs that take 91% of retained earnings are used in either stock buyback programs (54%) or to pay dividends (37%). That leaves 9% for salary increases, rewards and training for the employees.
Thursday - After achieving record profits, stock valuations and loading the corporate coffers with record amounts of cash, after paying the CEO record salaries and after awarding nearly all of the retained earning to well, anyone but those who achieved those earning - um, that's your employees, you'll decide those same employees are no longer competitive.
HBS Alumni reported 56 separate instances where they moved 1,000 or more U.S. jobs to foreign countries, zero cases of moving that many jobs in one block to America from abroad, and just four cases of creating that many new jobs in the United States. Three in four respondents said American competitiveness was falling. U.S. Corporate Executives to American Workers: Drop Dead.
Given the numbers, the clouds and stormy, sullen outbursts will increase and management will interpret it as justification.
Friday - Donuts!
In an effort to counteract the effects on morale of the previous days, management announces that donuts - Krispy Kremes! - will be served on Casual Fridays.
Casual Fridays has been a welcomed tradition for the last ten years. We felt that after ten years, and even in these challenging times, our beloved employees deserved more recognition for their efforts. And what better way than to serve our most important asset, our beloved employees, delicious donuts from Krispy Kreme - no more than two per employee - on top of Casual Fridays! Thank you so much. Nom, nom.
Next Monday, I'll share a POSSIBLE five-day forecast for employee engagement.
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