Jim Harter, Ph.D., is Chief Scientist Workplace Management and Well-Being for Gallup's workplace management practice and The Gallup World Poll. He is coauthor of the New York Times bestseller 12: The Elements of Great Managing , an exploration of the 12 crucial ingredients for creating and harnessing employee engagement. His research has been popularized in the business bestsellers First, Break All the Rules and How Full Is Your Bucket? and in academic articles, book chapters, and publications such as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
Harter is the primary researcher and author of the first meta-analysis to investigate the relationships between work-unit employee engagement and business results. This study, which is updated periodically, currently covers 24,000 business units in 37 industries and 23 countries. He is coauthor of "Manage Your Human Sigma," published in the Harvard Business Review (July/August, 2005). This groundbreaking management approach assesses and improves the quality of the employee-customer encounter.
Since joining Gallup in 1985, Harter has authored or coauthored more than one thousand research studies for profit and nonprofit organizations on employee engagement and talent as well as topics in industrial and organizational psychology and well-being. His specialties include psychological measurement and the estimation of the practical effect of management initiatives.
Harter received his doctorate in psychological and cultural studies in quantitative and qualitative methods from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with his wife RaLinda and their two sons.
Books
12: The Elements of Great Managing