On Human Capital, and Happiness

Last week I was sitting and thinking about human capital, and how our quest to acquire the best (or the most suitable) associates in the work that we do in the public sector can take up inordinate amounts of time. Never mind that the dictates of the generational shifts indicate that people will no longer work in a job for 10-20 years only to retire with a fat pension and a brain full on institutional knowledge. No, most of us in Gen X & Y will shift jobs and maybe even careers every 2 years. It's not about company or field, but about skill sets and how you can apply them to various sectors over the span of a career. Make the most of your time at your current job/make things better ...and leave.

I also began thinking about how sometimes in the nonprofit sector, the employees are the most overlooked part of the whole operation. We add in hundreds of thousands of dollars into grant budgets to hire the most appropriate people to run our projects and our organizations. Once we get them on board, and they fulfill their job functions - what then?

In my limited experience in the nonprofit sector, supervisors have rarely asked me outside of the interview process - what are my life goals, what is my personal vision for my own life, how do I see this job fitting in with my own life path ..... and then helping me be a better employee, a better HUMAN, by checking in on these larger goals.

By and large, nonprofits spend the most amount of money on, add the most capacity with, and achieve their missions through their employees. Why then, is there not a movement for employee happiness? If the asset that you spend the most on, rely on the most is unhappy/unfulfilled/unchallenged/unengaged - how can you say that you are effectively fulfilling your mission?

This is just a question that I am putting out to the world - but I'd love to heard from all of you about what you think about this - how have you felt fulfilled as a part of a nonprofit team, or unfulfilled ....