your employees without adding to the already high costs of your operations is the challenge that today’s manager faces.
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Facts and Fallacies about Motivation
Are you motivated? How do you really know? Motivation can be a tough term to define — even when we relate the term to our own behavior. Imagine, then, how difficult it can be to spot, and reinforce, motivation in others.
But spot it we must if we wish to maintain a fully operational workforce. Employee turnover has risen to startling levels in the past two decades. According to a survey conducted by the Bureau of National Affairs, turnover increased from 1.1 percent per month in both 1997 and 1998 to 1.2 percent in 1999. Worse, turnover increased at an even greater pace for smaller companies (those with fewer than 250 employees) from .09 percent in 1998 to 1.2 percent in 1999.
There is no doubt that managers and business owners are critically aware of the need to motivate their staff members. Recruitment and retention are high on the list of corporate initiatives at most organizations as they struggle to maintain a fully functioning workforce. What it takes to keep employees on the job, however, is not necessarily clear to those attempting the task. In fact, a poll conducted of senior executives at Drake Beam Morin (DBM), a leading workplace consulting firm, revealed the following misconceptions about the impact of various practices on employee retention — misconceptions, says dbm, that organizations need to overcome.
1) “Show me the money.” While there is no question that compensation is a very powerful lure to entice employees to accept new opportunities, money is not necessarily the answer to the retention issue. dbm’s experience in working with people in career transition has found that career development and challenging work opportunities are often greater incentives than money to stay or start with an employer.
2) “Recruitment is a separate issue.” Not so. An effective retention strategy begins at the earliest stages of the selection and recruitment process, according to dbm. Selecting the right people — those whose skill sets and attitudes fit the organization’s needs and values — is critical to retention. Most turnover, they say, is due to “bad chemistry.”
3) “Training will only make employees more marketable.” In the long run, providing employees with the latest in learning opportunities may indeed raise their market value. However, it also helps to motivate them and enhance their performance in their current positions. Offering training and development opportunities is a very worthwhile retention strategy.
4) “We can’t hold on to good people.” The notion of holding on, which companies often use in a figurative sense, may mask a more literal problem, dbm says. The traditional view of retention, to which many companies still adhere, is the ability to hold on to or keep employees. Today’s reality is that companies need to adopt a more flexible and understanding approach to meeting individual needs by creating an environment in which employees want to stay and grow. Employees need to be viewed as free agents, not fixed assets.
5) “Once they leave, who cares?” The traditional approach was to send departing employees on their way and not look back. However, valuable lessons may be learned from those who leave, most often during exit interviews, which can help bolster future retention rates.
Recruiting, retaining, and motivating employees is a complex process rife with misconceptions. Before going any further, let’s take a closer look at some of most common myths surrounding the issue of motivation.
Fallacy #1: Motivation is the Goal
As a manager, what do you want from your employees? Many managers might say, “I want them to be reliable, to come to work every day on time. I want them to be dependable; to produce consistent results. I want them to perform.”
Is it enough to have “motivated” employees? No. Motivation should not be the end goal of your human resource activities. Motivation is not enough. Motivation must lead to something — and that something is the realization of your business goals and objectives.
It’s not enough to have happy or satisfied employees. A team of happy employees may be highly motivated, but if their efforts are not being directed toward the accomplishment of specific business goals and objectives, what’s the point?
The desire to motivate employees is driven by the need to operate a successful business. That may seem somewhat callous, but it is the reality of doing business. Even in a not-for-profit environment, there are certain goals and objectives that must be met — raising a certain amount of money to support the organization’s mission, for example.
Suppose you have an administrative assistant who is extremely enthusiastic about her job. She comes to work every day, on time, ready to perform. But her dream is to be a graphic designer. The part of her job she loves the most is being creative with the documents she produces — she loves to find clipart on the Internet, and add it to memos and letters. She eagerly volunteers to create flyers for employee events and has developed a department newsletter on which she spends a great deal of time each week. Because she so enjoys these creative activities, she rushes through her other tasks. There is no doubt that your administrative assistant is a very motivated employee. But is she motivated to do the right things?
Yes, you should be concerned about motivating your employees. But you must recognize that motivation, in itself, is not the goal. The goal is the accomplishment of your business objectives — motivated employees are one of the tools that will allow your company to reach those objectives.
Fallacy #2: Money Motivates
The idea that money is an effective motivator is perhaps the most common motivational myth. As Herzberg pointed out many years ago, money is a maintainer — not a motivator. Certainly pay is important and you need to ensure that employees are fairly paid in the context of both their coworkers and of the market in which you operate. But given a fair rate of pay, more money will not provide more motivation.
Good managers intuitively know that different things motivate different employees, says a Purdue University human resource expert, but putting a tailored plan into action is not as easy as it sounds. David Schoorman, who teaches human resource management at Purdue’s Krannert School of Management, also consults extensively with industry. Schoorman says the structured “one-size-fits-all” corporate compensation plan can trip up even the most responsive, creative manager.
“A real challenge for supervisors and managers today is to figure out how to be that bridge between the standard benefit list of ‘what you get’ and what really motivates you as an employee,” Schoorman says. “People putting together compensation and benefit plans often underestimate the value of growth opportunities, both professional and personal, as motivational tools.”
Here’s a very common example. An employee who has been doing an exceptional job, is paid well, and has been with your company for a number of years applies for a promotion to an open position. The position has also been advertised outside the company; in fact, a national search is under way to find the best applicant for the job. The internal applicant believes that he or she is that best applicant. Yet you find that external applicants offer broader experience, more varied backgrounds, and the fresh approaches you’re hoping to inject into your company. You regretfully decide not to interview the internal applicant.
Over the next few months, this formerly motivated, highly energetic, and satisfied employee begins to exhibit signs of unrest.
