Why I'm paying my employees to read books this year

I recently announced at our company all-hands meeting that I'll be paying all employees to read books this year.?

I know - I already pay them to show up and do stuff, now I'm paying them to sit around, too. Why?

Keep...um...reading.

Any way you slice it, reading is lagging in America. Seventeen percent of Americans read no books at all in the past year. The percentage of adults who read more than 10 books in the previous year is at an all-time low. Even college graduates are reading less.

Connect Gifting has ambitious goals for 2023, namely to double in size. During a potential recession. I know: What are we thinking?

But the road to ambitious goals is paved with ambitious ideas, and reading books is the best way to generate them.

Reading is vital for business insight

Americans are, in fact, reading. Just not books, as mentioned above. In 2021, Americans engaged with digital media, whether written content (like tweets and social media posts), audio content like podcasts, or videos, for eight hours a day. And while this type of content can be informative (and certainly entertaining), it's rarely insightful. At least not as insightful as a book.?

Most books took a long time to write and craft. Authors often did original research and spent even more time carefully mulling over their thoughts and ideas before finding a publisher willing to bind those together and print them. As such, a book is a deep examination into an important and relevant topic and is still the best format to achieve these aims.

I have averaged about 25 books a year for the past few years and usually set my reading list for the first half of the year around Christmas. It's often centered around a common theme I'm wanting to dive into more deeply. In 2022 I read a lot of books about process improvement and scale; this year it's all about community. Nearly always I find something immediately actionable and deeply relevant to my company's work and try to apply or test it for the company's benefit, and so far I've had a fairly high success rate.

But I'm just one man. And if we're going to double I need more people fighting that fight with me.

How my company is encouraging reading

My company's reading program is simple: an employee chooses any (or all) of the seven books available (all of which I've read more than once). We'll provide a copy of the book (digital, physical or audio). The employee reads the book and completes an online form sharing at least three ideas they gained from the book that will help our company in its quest to double in size this year.

Once the employee completes those tasks, they'll earn $50 for each book read. The program is open to all current employees, part- or full-time, regardless of job title or department.

I'll keep you posted on the success of this idea. If everyone on staff reads each book we'll generate over 500 new ideas. Not all will be winners, but as long as one ambitious idea surfaces, it may be just the thing we need to grow well into our next decade.

Reading creates community and connection

Ever heard of a book club? It's the thing your wife goes to each week where they drink wine and maybe someone accidentally mentions the book title. Why does she go every week? For the community.

Today's workplace is becoming more and more lonely and mere financial goals (doubling in size, anyone?) aren't enough to keep people bought in. People don't leave bad jobs; they leave lonely ones. And just maybe books can connect us once again.

Once we get a critical mass of readers for a given book (Atomic Habits by James Clear is the current popular pick) we'll break off into discussion groups so people can share with others (and not just me) what they found interesting or inspiring, work-related or not. This may seem like a small benefit but it's one that is needed in today's world of work that leaves a lot of us disconnected.

Leaders read

So, fellow leaders of people, you too can encourage reading at your workplace and reap the benefits of intelligence and community.

What would you pay to keep your employees generating new ideas with a deep sense of community? $50 per book? More? Seems like a small investment for what could be a large upside.

But it doesn't count if you aren't also reading. Need a new idea? Take a look.

It's in a book.