Millions of people go to work everyday or 5 times a week, many do not like their jobs but they could. Patrick Lencioni wrote the book The 3 Signs of a Miserable Job published by Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2007. In the book is the story of a successful CEO who after being bought out works at a small restaurant and begins to think about how to make the people who work there like their jobs. What are the obstacles? and how to overcome them. The CEO comes up with 3 reasons why people do not like their jobs – anonymity, irrelevance, and immeasurement.

Anonymity – people are social animals, they like to be known. In many jobs, people are seen as invisible, generic or anonymous.

The easy solution is to acknowledge them and appreciate them for being their talents and why they are at the workplace.

Irrelevance – everyone needs to know that their job matters, to someone. If you do not see a connection to the work and the satisfaction level, the employee will not find lasting fulfillment.

The easy but hard solution – have the manager and employee figure who benefits from their job.

Immeasurement – employees need to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution for themselves. They need some measurement criteria which allows them to control their own fate.

The easy solution all jobs have metrics rather than depending on the opinions or whims of another person.

The idea is that management (all levels) need coaching to ensure their direct reports are not anonymous, irrelevant, and not measured. When the three things happen, attitudes change and people work with others. A quote able line in the book – management is a everyday thing, Strategy and financial reporting are not.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, people who like their jobs are more productive and better employees. They tend to stay longer, however it is possible from different viewpoints to see if the people in the companies you invested in actually like their jobs. Once you get over the pay (it is what it is) you decided if you want the job. You can be much more than a description, a person can insert themselves into it. You can ask the HR department for general surveys, because as investors we all look at different criteria to complete the picture. Depending of how much you are investing, you want to know what you think is important besides the company makes money and pays its dividend. Is it sustainable? do they have the correct management? what is their employee satisfaction amount? how does it translate to the best companies? do the best companies have an automatic competitive advantage because they have more satisfied workers. All types of data tells you something when it comes to investing.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions