Most of us, though, don't seek
immortality in our work but rather the supreme pleasure, right now, of complete
focus and concentration on something we really want to do. The question is, how
can organizations absolutely maximize the proportion of their employees who
regard their jobs in this way?
Greatest Asset
Chief executives of most organizations rarely miss an opportunity to remind
their audience (and themselves) that their people are their most precious asset.
Certainly, in the highly sophisticated economies in which organizations operate
today, where every player can gain access to a similar caliber and quality of
technology, and where basically all players need to pay about the same for their
financing, premises and other key resources - it is a matter of sheer commercial
logic that an organisation's people represent the most crucial weapon in its bid
for competitive supremacy.
The trouble is, organizations by no means necessarily put this thinking into
practice by taking every step to ensure that every member of staff wants to
perform to the very highest levels of which they are personally capable.
Instead, the process of attrition of morale and energy can begin almost the
instant a new employee takes up a position. For far too many people, the initial
interview that led to them being given the job may represent the most positive
and idealistic experience they ever have with the organization. All too often,
it's downhill all the way after that.
This is not only tragic for the people involved it is also commercially
nonsensical for the organization employing them. An organization whose staff
aren't fully committed and giving their all cannot possibly be doing justice to
itself at any level. Fortunately, more and more organizations - especially those
in the ever more important service sector - have become attuned to the idea that
there is not much point in employing people at all if you are not going to take
steps to make them want to give their very best to you. All the same, its by no
means the case that every organization thinks in this way, and even if the
organization does think in this way, it still needs to put this thinking into
practice.
Reasons to Work
There are still some chief executives and managing directors who think their
employees will be motivated to give a great performance simply because the
company has hired them. They see money as cure-all; their logic being that if
they pay their employee enough they'll put up with anything and have no reason
to grumble. But this is very faulty and outdated thinking.
Of course most people need to work today in order to earn a living, but while
the necessity to earn a living may be the main reason why most people work, it
does not follow from this that money is always the main factor motivating people
when they decide to work for one organization rather than another.
In practice, people are likely to be swayed by a range of other, non-financial
factors when deciding where they will work. This is particularly true of really
talented people, who tend to have a good idea of the market rate they can
command and will be looking for a prospective employer who can offer this market
rate and other advantages. Overall, while the precise reasons why people work
will vary from one individual to the next, it is nonetheless possible to make
som e useful general observations about employee motivation.
First of all, in today's employment market, where the notion of cradle to gave
secure employment is in most cases an increasingly distant memory, people are
more and more conscious of the need to maximize their employability. A big
reason why people take a job in the first place, and why they might be motivated
to give it their very best, concerns how they imagine the experience they are
gaining will look on their CV.
Furthermore, they will expect ongoing development at the organization where they
work. They will be very likely to go somewhere else if they don't get that sense
of being developed.
Training
In today's tough job market where there is strong competition among employers
for talented people, employers need to understand that the training and
development they extend to all their employees - and especially to their more
talented ones - will not only make employees more able and more valuable, but
will also act as a powerful incentive for them to stay. Of course, organizations
are always at risk that their staff will leave, taking their new skills with
them. Yet employees of organizations that don't develop their staff have little
motivation to stay. This is a paradox, but it is one with a simple solution:
accept that employees are more likely to leave if they aren't developed, and
find ways to make people want to keep working at your organization.
Fortunately, there are certain constructive courses of action you can pursue to
make people want to stay with you. And moving literally to the other side of the
coin, the very fact that money is not by any means necessarily the main factor
in people's decision to take a job in the first place or to keep working at a
job once they have got it, means there is considerable scope for employers to
make conscious efforts to offer their employees non-financial motivations that
employees crave so much.
Among the most important non-financial motivations are:
• Advancement: People at work set great store by the extent to which they
perceive that their job is giving them the opportunity for career advancement,
both on a short-term and long-term basis.
• Autonomy: Most people, and all talented people, like to be able to get on a
roll as far as work is concerned. A degree of real autonomy, where someone can
really get "into" their jobs, is likely to be welcome.
• Civilized treatment: Even today, when organizations know perfectly well how
expensive it is to recruit good people and how costly and disruptive it can be
if good people resign, too many organizations treat people in a brusque, even
uncivilized way. The problem may often arise because a line manage or middle
manager who is responsible for the people in question is himself or herself
working under great stress and, in effects 'kicks downwards'. But such behavior
needs to be weeded out. It can easily wipe out a great deal of effort by a human
resources department in recruiting and motivating someone and then doing
everything they can to help them settle into a particular job and be successful
at it.
• Employer commitment: People like to feel that their employers are genuinely
committed to them and to their careers.
• Environment: A pleasant working environment is always welcome, especially in a
high-pressure job where stress caused by a not especially agreeable environment
can easily have a strong negative effect on performance.
• Exposure to senior people: Most employees like to feel they are being noticed
by an organisation's senior people and that they could approach these people if
necessary for advice and guidance.
• P raise is awarded when praise is due: One of the classic signs of poor
management occurs when staff are given negative feedback for what is perceived
as poor performance, but never give positive feedback. Extending people praise
where praise is due often requires a negligible amount of time on the part of a
manger or even energy, but the emotional benefits to the member of staff can be
enormous.
• Support is available: Employees like to feel that there is someone available
to whom they can turn for advice if they needed it.
• The feeling of being challenged: Employees like to feel challenged, given that
they believe they have the tools and skills to respond to the challenge
successfully. Sometimes employees can respond with surprising resilience, energy
and commitment to even a really demanding challenge. Of course, too much of a
struggle can be malproductive and induce people to consider jumping ship, but
the sense of taking part in a struggle can also be energizing. Remember that
when Winston Churchill wanted to rally the British people into giving their very
best effort in 1940, he did not promise them fish and chips, real ale and
comfortable mattresses to sleep on, but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
• The feeling of being trusted: Feeling trusted is a gratifying feeling because
it makes one feel a useful part of the team and confers significant status. As
social animals, we will habitually - and often for very good reasons - withhold
trust until we believe that extending this is justified. Employees know this, so
the bestowal of trust is quite rightly regarded as extremely important.
Employees who feel trusted are more likely to feel a useful and important part
of an organization and are more likely to confer loyalty on their organization.
• The feeling of working for a good and reliable organization: People want to be
proud of their jobs and of their organizations they work for. People are
unlikely to have much staying power at an organization they perceive, rightly or
wrongly, as a cowboy outfit.
• The feeling of working on useful assignments: Napoleon reputedly used to keep
his army busy during slack times between battles by sending one half of his army
out into fields to dig holes and subsequently sending the other half of the army
into the same fields to fill them up. Doing this might have been useful for
logistics and morale purposes, as otherwise the soldiers would have remained
idle and bored. But it would hardly have been a successful ruse if the two
halves of the army ever got a chance to meet each other and discuss their day's
work. The point is that the feeling that one is doing a truly useful assignment
is extremely powerful as a factor motivating employees. Of course the assignment
has to be genuinely useful. Every employee, no matter which rung they
accommodate on the corporate hierarchy, wants to feel important and valued, and
there is no better way of helping an employee feel this than by giving him or
her some genuinely significant assignment on which to work.
• The work/life balance is respected: Employees know they are going to have to
work hard, but an employer who shows sensitivity to work/life balance issues is
very likely to outscore one who doesn't.
Ultimately, all these elements of positive motivation are contributing factors
to the overall level of engagement the employee bring to his or her job. This
term engagement is being used increasingly at an organizational level to denote
the idea of an employee being fully intellectually and emotionally committed to
a particular job, so that he or she wants to give to that job what is known as
discretionary effort. This is the effort which it is not necessary for an
employee to give to a job but which he or she wants to give to it.
The term engagement is useful, emotionally honest and authentic due to its
connotations with commitment, bonding and even affection. But it is important to
distinguish clearly between the process of engaging employees by helping them to
love their jobs, and the very different process of hiring employees in the fist
place following a recruitment drive.
Engaging employees is important whatever the potential of the employee, but it
is especially crucial for truly talented people who are likely to have
leadership potential either now or in the future. Engaging talented people needs
to be a top organizational priority because they are by definition especially
precious possessions. They are particularly likely to find another berth if they
don't feel that this one meets their demanding needs for job satisfaction,
purpose and sense of self-worth.