Public Employee Satisfaction Data

Recently I met a Bikram Yoga instructor that was sharing some of her workplace horror stories. One of her first jobs as a Yogi was at hot yoga studio run by a man that had no experience with Bikram Yoga, but saw the potential business opportunity and wanted to cash in. According to this instructor, the man would hire young, attractive students from larger yoga classes to be teachers at his Bikram Yoga studio.

He would then mass-advertise the classes. She then said that during every class he would take chair behind each instructor and watch them as they did each pose in their tight pants and sports bras. Clearly the employees at this studio were unhappy, as the owner was essentially harassing them throughout their routines.

So they would quit, only to be immediately replaced by other young instructors that this man would find at other hot yoga studios.

Employees were clearly unsatisfied, but this man didn’t care, because he could simply find new employees that would replace them and get the same joy out of watching them perform their routines. Employee satisfaction only matters if the owners and executives care how the employees feel. Within this small business they clearly did not.

Companies like Glassdoor.com are trying to reduce this problem, by allowing people to leave reviews of businesses while also providing a space for past employees to vent their thoughts on how to make the workplace better. Yet in an ideal world, companies would be held even more accountable. Someday it would be nice to see mandatory employee satisfaction surveys of all companies, with the results of these surveys posted online for everyone to see, and possibly playing a role in some type of rating system that these companies would be forced to keep on the door in public view – sort of like the way restaurant inspection reports need to be shared in California.

It’s obvious that this could create some initial friction, but eventually it would lead to owners and executives that are forced to create a culture that treats employees with respect. Those companies that care little about the happiness of their employees – like the hot yoga studio above – would quickly be run out of business because they’d be forced to wear a badge of shame about how unhappy their employees are in the workplace. It’s certainly not a perfect solution, but it is one that could easily change the way businesses currently operate, and presumably change the culture of today’s economy.