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Are Happy Employees
Motivated Employees? |
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Copyright © 2006 The National
Learning Institute
When was the last time you felt excited, motivated and extremely keen to be
at work? Chances are it was when you had a job or project that really
interested you, you had control over what you did and the way you did it,
and you didn’t have any worries about “over zealous boss” interference or
lack of job security. It’s a great feeling and we can all probably relate
stories of how and when we were most “motivated” at work.
But as managers, do we consciously try to provide this same level of
motivation for all of our employees? Or, are we merely fixated on striving
to achieve the deadlines, budgets and targets that are set for us (and that
seem to be getting tougher and tougher and placing more and more stress on
us and our people), and forgetting what it was really like when we worked in
an environment that was truly “motivational”.
My challenge to practicing managers, is to think back to when they were most
motivated at work and identify the reasons why (list them on a sheet of
paper as dot points). Then, set about implementing these same conditions for
their own people. (Draw up your own list now and see how it compares with
mine)
I’ve issued this challenge to managers over the last 20 years in management
development forums and invariably their “motivational conditions” they
identify are:
• Autonomy – the chance to take control over a complete project or unit of
work in which I am really interested
• Responsibility – for setting goals and targets and being accountable for
achieving them
• Recognition – for achieving meaningful results
• Development – of my skills, knowledge and capabilities to their full
potential
I then ask them to identify the things that really irritate and annoy them
and (often) change what could have been a motivating workplace into a
drudgery. They are:
• Bosses who do not recognize them for their efforts, or worse still, take
the credit themselves
• A lack of feeling of “team”, ie., “we are in this together”
• Constant implied or implicit threats of demotion or dismissal
• Insufficient salary (by comparison to others in the firm or in the
industry)
If these sound familiar, then you’re right! Frederick Herzberg in his
classic HBR article “Once More, How do you Motivate Employees?”
(harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu) came up with two similar sets of
lists nearly forty years ago that he labeled “Motivators” and “Satisfiers”.
Do they hold true today? Recent research into the turnover rates for young
employees (20 – 30 yrs) shows that in some industries, the turnover rate of
young employees is as high as 25% annually due to lack of perceived career
development and training, and limited opportunities for involvement in other
areas of the firm and their profession. These younger people, by comparison
to their predecessors:
• Are more opportunistic in taking new jobs.
• Are more mobile.
• Have greater expectations.
• Are easily bored.
Andrew Heathcote (www.brw.com.au/stories)
in answer to this challenge suggests that managers need to:
Communicate:
• Be honest during interviews.
• Be serious about performance reviews.
• Do more career mapping.
• Create a forum to develop a greater spirit of involvement.
Tailor the workplace:
• Provide more job rotation.
• Arrange more rotation between offices.
• Develop specific training.
• Introduce variety.
• Develop forums for social interaction.
Be flexible:
• Consider providing sabbaticals (so they can travel without resigning).
• Increase the availability of unpaid leave.
So today’s younger employee is not so different from the generation who
manage them – maybe they want their motivation and satisfaction a little
faster!
By the way, notice that the majority of items on Andrew’s list are what
Herzberg called “Motivators”. In fact the only two that could be termed real
“Satisfiers” are the last two – sabbaticals and unpaid leave.
But, to return to my initial question, does motivation equate with
happiness? Richard Layard (www.pfd.co.uk/clients/layardr/b-aut.html)
suggests that work plays a very important part in our happiness and that a
lot of our happiness actually comes from the work we do. And the job that we
do is affected by how we are allowed to do it. In addition, he found that in
regard to the “Satisfiers”:
• Not having a job when you should have one, is much worse than suffering a
sudden drop in income
• People who feel insecure about retaining their job, suffer a loss of
happiness (relative to those who do feel secure) that is 50% greater than
the loss of happiness suffered by people whose income drops by a third.
Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick (www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/
staff/faculty/oswald/homejobs.pdf) confirms some of the importance of the
“satisfiers”:
• Having a lot of job security is important to feeling a high degree of
satisfaction with your job
• People with relatively high incomes or university degrees tend to get more
satisfaction
• Women tend to be more satisfied than men
• The self-employed tend to be more satisfied
• People who work in a small workplace tend to be more satisfied than those
who work for large employers
• Working at home tends to lead to higher satisfaction
• A job that involves dealing with people tends to bring higher satisfaction
Herzberg would be very pleased with the results of the amazing amount of
today’s research that confirms his contention that it is important for
managers to concentrate on both the “Motivators” and the “Satisfiers” if one
is to have happy and motivated employees.
The message? Managers, revisit your own list of “Motivators” Start working
on implementing the things on that list of yours with your employees today!
If you would like to find out how motivated and satisfied your people are,
you can do so with a simple feedback profile such as CHECKpoint™
(nationallearning.com.au/index_files/EmployeeFeedbackandMotivation.htm).
CHECKpoint™ has been developed on the work of Herzberg and another great
social psychologist, D.C. McLelland. It not only provides feedback on
employee motivation and satisfaction, but also how to maintain these and
address any problematic issues.
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Bob Selden is the Managing Director of the National Learning Institute. He
has been an HRD consultant for over 30 years, prior to which he was a line
manager in a financial organization. He is an Australian currently living in
Switzerland and is a part time member of faculty at the International
Management Development Institute in Lausanne and the Australian Graduate
School of Management in Sydney. You can contact Bob at
http://www.nationallearning.com.au/ |
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