The Jolly good fellow of Google

Recently I was privileged to have a lunch session with Chade-Meng TAN, Google's 107the employee and first Singaporean to be so employed at Google and a man with the most unique title “the Jolly good fellow of Google”.

Not something I can deny since I don't know him too well!!!

In any case the thing that I agree with him is that personal and professional development springs from personal inner development and happiness and directly translates to organizational growth and profits.

Think about it. If keeping your employees happy translates to profits why are several of the organisations and organizational leaders who are driving profits by retrenching people doing. The answer is simple .. they have a paucity of ideas, while there is no excuse to keep underperformers in the organisation, a concerted push to openness and information sharing will lead to a greater understanding of each others needs and a consequent movement towards a shared organisational goal.

None exemplifies this philosophy better than HCLT with their motto of “Employees first and customers second”. Keeping the employees happy and informed is key to employees understanding organisational needs and engaging them to deliver and exceed the performance targets and more fully responding to the customer and market needs at the point of customer interactivity.

In todays flat organisational structures and knowledge based industries, the key to competitiveness lies in unlocking your employees knowledge and creativity to the greatest impact and by following their mantra of employees first and customers second HCLT has not only managed to keep their employees happy they have outperformed their peers in the market.

Just as a happy person shines a beacon of light on the activites that they accomplish moral of the story is that unlocking employee skills and creativity by minimizing command and control structures is key to growth and productivity in this new age of the Gen Y employee.