FACTORS IN EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION

There are many other theories as to what motivates people at work. Believe me, I’ve studied them all. The Gallup organisation conducted research in recent years and listed Twelve Elements of Great Managing in the book First, Break all the Rules, published in 1999; I suggest you read it.

However, I keep coming back to research that was conducted in American industries between 1981 and 1991. I’ve conducted this research myself on Motivational Manager seminars and the same results keep coming up.

The purpose of the research was to identify the importance of certain factors in employee motivation and satisfaction across a range of industries.

The following ten factors describe things that people may want from their jobs. I’m sure they’ll make a lot of sense to you. This is my version of them in no particular order:

• Job security
• Sympathetic understanding of personal problems
• Company loyalty to employees
• Interesting work
• Good working conditions
• Tactful discipline
• Good salary
• Growth and promotion in the organisation
• A feeling of being involved in the business
• Appreciation for work done

Managers and employees have both taken part in this research. Managers are asked to think about the members of their team and put themselves in their shoes. They are then asked to rate these factors in order of importance from 1 to 10, with 1 being the most important. I always emphasise that managers should not think in terms of what they consider to be the most important factors but rather what they think their team members believe. We all know that people will be motivated by different things and we all have many needs that compete to control our behaviour. However, managers are asked to ‘think across the board’ when considering what motivates their people.

The employees are also asked to rate these factors and the results are compared.

Employee satisfaction factors	Manager rating	Employee rating
Job security	2	4
Sympathetic understanding	9	9
Company loyalty to employees	7	8
Interesting work	5	1
Good working conditions	4	7
Tactful discipline	6	10
Good salary	1	5
Growth and promotion	3	6
A feeling of being involved	10	3
Appreciation for work done	8	2

I’ve conducted this research many times with managers and it always provokes lengthy and highly charged discussion. Many managers don’t agree with the results from the other managers in this research, but several of them do. They also have a hard time accepting the employees’ ratings. However, I believe that much of this unwillingness to accept these results comes from a lack of understanding.

Managers do tend to believe initially that money is what motivates people at work. I hear statements like:

‘My people are only interested in the money.’

‘That’s why they come to work.’

‘Sales people are motivated by money, that’s why we pay them commission and bonuses.’

‘You try reducing their money and see what happens.’

Many of these comments tend to come from theory x managers.

However, if you want to become a successful Motivational Manager please accept that for the majority of employees – money is not a motivator!

However, as Hertzberg established in his research, if the money is not acceptable to the employee, it becomes a demotivator. If people don’t feel that they’re getting the correct salary then interesting work won’t motivate them.

In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, money satisfies the basic Physiological and Safety needs; it allows us to buy food and clothing and put a roof over our head.

Yes there are people who are motivated purely by money. These are the people who work overseas or on an oil rig away from their family and friends. They work night and day, often in an inhospitable environment, just to earn money. Of course, it could be said that they’re not working solely for the money, rather than what the money can buy, such as an expensive car or a large house. This in turn meets their Esteem and ego needs, winning the recognition and attention of other people.

I doubt very much that there are many well-paid employees who wake up in the morning and say, ‘I must get off to my office, work really hard and give my all because I’m so well paid.’

If you increased the salary of your employees by £5000, then I’m sure they’d be really pleased and motivated to do well – but for how long? I reckon that within a couple of months that extra 5000 would be accepted as the norm with virtually no effect on motivation. And don’t think it matters if it was 10,000. After a while it wouldn’t make a difference.

In the survey above, managers rated job security the second most important factor in employee motivation. However, again it’s a Hygiene factor. If employees felt that their job was in jeopardy then it would be a demotivator; telling them that they have a job for life is hardly going to motivate them to do better. Again it’s true to say that there are a number of people who would feel motivated to do their job well because they’re in a really secure job. However, the majority of employees do feel secure in their jobs and it isn’t a major factor in motivation.

The managers rated promotion and growth as the third most important motivating factor. And again this is a motivator for some people. They work hard and apply themselves with the sole goal of being promoted and growing within the organisation. The majority of employees don’t regard this as a motivating factor as they have either no desire to be promoted or they see it as an unattainable goal.

Let’s look at what employees regard as their most important motivating factors.

Interesting work

The work itself is the most important motivating factor for the majority of employees. If they like what they do, then they’re more likely to do it better. If they find their work interesting, then they will wake up in the morning wanting to get to work and make a difference.

You might be thinking, ‘What if they don’t like their work? How am I supposed to motivate them?’ Obviously you can offset their lack of job satisfaction by taking some of the actions we’ve looked at earlier. Spend quality time with them, give them Confirming feedback and empower them. However, there are other practical actions you can take to make a team member’s job more interesting:

• Vary the jobs they do;
• Give them more responsibility;
• Give them some of your tasks;
• Ask them to train or mentor another member of the team;
• Ask them to sit in occasionally on management meetings;
• Give them further training.

I’ve mentioned several times about the demotivated telesales team I inherited. Before I took over, the main task for the people in this team was to phone pubs, clubs, bars and hotels. They obtained the customer’s order for different kinds of beer and entered the details into the computer system. Here are some of the actions I took to make the job more interesting for individuals and for the group:

• Christine was promoted from supervisor to team manager.
• Two members of the team were promoted to team leaders, leading a team of seven.
• A range of incentives, product promotions and team competitions were introduced.
• Each member of the team spent time with a field sales person visiting customers.
• Product knowledge sessions were conducted to give the team a better understanding of the different beers sold by the company.
• New products were introduced, including soft drinks, wine and spirits.
• Everyone attended a wine appreciation seminar.
• Friday afternoons were designated as party times (with the work still getting done).
• The team became involved in fundraising activities and charity events.
• The team took part in a national telesales competition (they came second).

Many other things took place with the objective of making the job more interesting – of making it fun!

This is probably a totally different business from the one you work in but I’m sure you could produce your own list that would make your team members’ jobs more interesting and much more fun.

Nobody motivates today’s workers. If it doesn’t come from within, it doesn’t come. Fun helps remove the barriers that allow people to motivate themselves.

Herman Cain (American businessman, founder of Godfather Pizza)

Appreciation

The second most important motivation factor that employees rated was appreciation for work done.

This brings us back to Confirming feedback; employees want to be told when they’ve done something well. Let’s face it, everyone wants to know when they’ve done well; children, teenagers and your nearest and dearest.

In the workplace, it’s not about telling people once a year or every six months at their formal appraisal; it’s about doing it every time you experience a member of your team doing something well.

Remember what we said earlier: ‘You get more of what you reward.’ If you reward a team member with some Confirming feedback, they will be highly motivated to do the same thing again and do it better. There are also practical things you can do to show appreciation:

• The occasional gift
• Time off work
• Gift vouchers
• Personal thank you letters
• A mention in the company newsletter or magazine
• Attend corporate events

Some of the things I used to do for my telesales team:

• Took cakes or doughnuts when I visited the team.
• Organised a letter from the Chief Executive when an individual or the team had performed well.
• Sent members of the team on any corporate events that were organised for customers.
• Organised a scheme where people could win gift vouchers based on individual and team performance.
• Delivered flowers on a birthday or any other important day.
• Seasonal celebration days such as Christmas or Easter.

I’m sure you could come up with many more tangible things you could do to say ‘thank you’ to your team. However, a few words of warning; never use any incentive or gift as a replacement for Confirming feedback. A genuine word of thanks delivered in the correct way is worth far more in terms of motivation then any tangible gift or bonus.

A feeling of being in on things

The third factor that employees rated as important in motivation was a feeling of being in on things, of being involved in the business. Employees want to know that what they do has an influence on the success of the team and the business. They will be highly motivated if they understand that they are actually making a difference.

Employees also want to be asked their opinion; they realise that you may not always be able to implement what they suggest but they will feel valued if you ask and consider what they say.

That’s why it’s so important to spend quality time with each member of your team; we looked at this in Chapter 3. It gives you an excellent opportunity to get feedback from each person. It allows you to tell them how the team is performing within the organisation and how they contribute to organisation as a whole.

Here are some practical things you can do to satisfy a team member’s need to feel in on things:

• Let them attend meetings.
• Give them all the information and let them run a briefing meeting.
• Ask for opinions.
• Report back on their feedback to you.

Some of the actions I used to take with my team:

• They all attended a weekly briefing meeting.
• They attended monthly sales meetings with the field sales team.
• They attended the national sales conference.
• They attended meetings with the technical engineers.
• They were encouraged to suggest how we might better serve our customers.
• They were consulted on how best to run a product promotion.

Again I’m sure you could come up with many ideas that would be relevant to your business.

Hire the best. Pay them fairly. Communicate frequently. Provide challenges and rewards. Believe in them. Get out of their way and they’ll knock your socks off.

Mary Ann Allison (American author)

SUMMING UP

All of the motivation theories we’ve looked at have their flaws and detractors. However, they do give you some guidelines as to how you can create a motivational environment for your people. Your team members will be motivated by different factors and that’s why it’s so important to spend quality time with them and to get to know them. You need to understand your team members from a business point of view and a human point of view.

If you have a team member who’s going through personal problems outside the workplace, then they’re unlikely to be motivated at work by any of the factors we’ve just looked at. In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs their Security needs must be satisfied before they can move on to anything else.

You must also remember that the members of your team are not robots, they are complex human beings. That’s why I said right at the start of this book that the job of the Motivational Manager can be difficult. These humans all see the world in a different way. You may be motivated by a specific factor but they may not. You may be motivated to develop and grow in the organisation but they may just want to enjoy their job and be appreciated for what they do.

Ironically, the factors that managers rated highly as motivators are often hard to achieve. It’s probably extremely difficult for you to increase a team member’s salary. I’m also sure that you can’t do much about their job security. And you certainly can’t ensure that they all get promoted and grow in the organisation.

What you can do much more easily and at very little or no cost is:

• Make their job more interesting by giving them some new tasks;
• Give them feedback and appreciation for what they do;
• Make them feel in on things by Power Listening and speaking with them on a regular basis.

As I’ve said before, I’ve done this job; I’m not a social psychologist or an academic. I know how tough it is and I appreciate the challenges you face.

I’ve used all techniques we’ve looked at in this book. They worked very successfully for me and I know they will work for you.

I wish you every success.