Motivation
By Colin Leopold, Business & Finance Magazine
Most companies only have a handful of staff to inspire and lead the organisation. But modern HR theory suggests that more can be done. By focussing on individual employees, Irish organisations are reaping the benefits of long term welfare programmes and discovering a highly motivated workforce.
Across the country, managers and organisations of all sizes and sectors are looking for new ways to get the most from their workforce and solve age old problems of worker motivation and productivity. Traditional HR intelligence is slowly being eroded by a new focus on employee welfare, with employee assistance programmes (EAP) and motivational tools becoming an integral part of the workplace. In the form of a telephone or even online counselling service and the provision of personal coaching, EAPs are proving that a happy worker is a productive worker.
Performance Indicators
Motivation can be channelled through the HR concept of performance management. But managers must look at long-term solutions to encourage a stronger workforce:
- Address Demotivators: Why might people be performing below standard? There might be issues around inequality in pay, recognition. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, so long as they believe it to be the case because ‘perception is reality’ for the employee. Bullying, harassment, culture in the workplace, favouritism are all issues. Eliminating demotivators means that you can then introduce incentives relative to the individual.
- Ownership of Goals: This is the most powerful motivator. The concept of management by objectives; ‘real goals will be achieved in 65% of cases rather than 27% where the goals are vague and not linked to the individual. People should be able to see how their goals fit into the bigger picture of the organisation.
- Training & Development: Supporting employees with an optimum organisational structure that facilitates both the employee and the organisation. Performance will not reach full potential without adequate training or skills.
- Recognising & Rewarding: Individual and team performance should be linked to incentives in the form of salary and remuneration, reflecting the employee’s contribution to the organisation. The equity issue is important, you must consider everyone fairly.
The best performance appraisal system in the world will not work if it is linked to a reward and remuneration system that employees do not trust or support. Remuneration is a component of both financial and non-financial reward; financially in terms of cash and benefits received and non-financially in terms of recognition, status and esteem, such as the use of a company car for example. Job evaluation is the process to determine the contribution of an employee to an organisation, but it needs to be seen by both the employee and the organisation as fair and equitable. Good salary administration demands that employees should receive financial recognition for the contribution that they make, and that positions of equal value should be entitled to equal compensation. If organisations handle this incorrectly, or manipulate it in some way, the impact upon the employees’ performance and productivity can be staggering. Past pay systems have often paid little attention to incentives. It is only in recent years that some systems have accounted for differentiation based on performance through fair incentives and performance related pay strategies.
“Performance management is particularly important at the moment” says Peter Ryan of RA Consulting, which offers strategic HR consulting and motivational solutions to a range of organisations. “Up until about 18 months ago, it was all about recruitment and retention, organisations were throwing money at people to stay, but as turnover has reduced, people are refocusing on incentivising employees, importing a stronger corporate culture and going back to some of the long term employee issues. They are asking questions such as: How can we develop teams within our organisation and how can we use our people to support our competitive position?” Companies are doing this through encouraging the commitment and loyalty of employees with incentives as well as addressing longer term issues by conducting regular employee attitudinal survey, addressing workplace issues in their infancy and dealing with the obvious ‘hygiene factors’ that make the workplace a relaxed and comfortable environment for employees.
Coping with Change
One of the big challenges faced by any organisation is change. “Constant change and high expectations take their toll in some organisations. Sometimes this is shown in employee turnover, sometimes it is hidden because of job insecurity,” says Ryan. “Organisational change often involves redundancy issues or the taking on of new staff, but it can also relate to politics in the organisation where people are just fed up with the management style”. Companies expanding might be putting more sophisticated systems in place or if downsizing, might face a lot of casualties, while managers are simultaneously trying to get increased efficiency out of staff and employees are worried about job security. Performance management can address inertia where managers are trying to get the most out of their employees.
Talent Search
There is a general feeling on the employer side that it can be very difficult to predict a problem employee during the recruitment process. Nevertheless, there are some good clues. Some candidates are expert at creating a good impression, only to show little substance after they are hired. “The bigger employers are recognising that the interview can be a very poor predictor, someone can quite easily tell them what they want to hear for 45 minutes so moving away from ‘yes/no’ questions is a good idea. There is a current trend for really probing candidates, putting them through case study or role-play scenarios, for example”.
Objective assessment methods can help to identify an individual’s leadership ability through a series of scientifically proven tests and questionnaires. Assessment methods also predict attitudes to risk and ability to cope under pressure, in addition to pinpointing those likely to abuse power. “A lot of firms are supplementing the recruitment process with psychometric testing” says Ryan at RA Consulting. “It’s not the be all and end all and it should be used with caution but it can be helpful in identifying characteristics such as intrinsic motivation, drive and enthusiasm”. With internal promotion and retention taking the place of mass recruitment, there is a lot more at stake when a company is looking for someone at managerial level to fit into the company’s culture and lead the organisation. “At very senior levels, companies are saying we can’t afford to get this wrong,” says Ryan. But many organisations have forgotten about basic reference checking when it comes to making a decision. A well thought out interpersonal or telephone interview with a previous employer can reveal a lot of information.
Potential employees are also playing their part in the changing recruitment industry. They are a lot more sophisticated in today’s job market, with a lot higher expectations. Most of them will no longer be swayed by a 5% or 10% salary increase but will look for a company that will fit with their own value system or is perceived as a nice place in which to work. “The branding of companies is becoming very important in the employee market” says Ryan of RA Consulting, who regularly witnesses the changing attitudes of staff towards employers. “We are always looking closely at what employees look for. We found that there’s been a shift in employee’s expectations over the last two years. They are demanding benefits like pensions and life insurance and looking for companies that are stable.” A point many employers would be wise to consider.