People are our most important product is one of the oldest aphorisms in business.
But ask that CEO how his or her people differ from the competition s and the answer will come that they are just, well, better. Ask how worker psychology contributes to economic value and the response is likely to consist of bromides about loyalty, empowerment, creativity, motivation. Since the beginnings of scientific management a century ago, researchers have been struggling to understand how the many aspects of human relations in the workplace affect the bottom line. Advances in the past decade have been pretty dramatic. In the 1990s The Gallup Organization accelerated its work in the field and began to study the effect of workers attitudes, emotions and behaviors on performance.