What motivates your staff?

OPINION: The Harvard Business Review recently conducted a survey with 600 managers from dozens of companies to rank the impact on employees of some significant workplace factors, writes Brian Richardson in this week's Work to Rule.

Those factors were; recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, support for making progress, and clear goals.

The results of that survey indicated that managers felt "recognition for good work" was the No1 significant factor.

According to the survey and the article in the Harvard Business Review reporting the study, they were wrong.

The authors of that survey had also been completing another, multi-year study tracking, among other things, motivation levels of hundreds of "knowledge" workers.

What the study found was that the factor the managers had ranked last was, in fact, the most motivating factor for the workers. The workers had ranked progress as the most motivating factor.

The article says: "On days when workers have the sense they're making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak."

Conversely, "On days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest."

These results are good for managers.

It turns out that that control of the motivation factor is largely within the managers' grasp.

This is good because it can be manipulated in everyone's best interests. It also means managers don't necessarily have to have great and complicated incentive schemes to engender a good and motivating work environment.

It is largely within managers' control to provide meaningful goals, encouragement to achieve those goals and resources to get things done.

It is also worthy of note that managers can also fail to provide these factors, and this is likely to demotivate their staff. Significantly within a manager's sphere of influence is the ability to deflect irrelevant demands that can cause demotivation.

The strongest advice the authors of the article (and the report) could offer is that managers should do nothing that unilaterally changes goals; do not be indecisive; and, very importantly, do not hold up the resources necessary for the workers to get their job done.

It was found that negative events have a greater effect on people's emotions, perceptions, and motivation than positive events. It is critically important, that the negatives are avoided if at all possible.

By way of conclusion, the article also mentioned that the one factor long recognised as the most motivating – recognition – does still play a part in motivating people.

What has to be remembered is that unless there is progress, there is potentially nothing to recognise.

They believe that managers can ensure there is progress every day but that recognition should happen as it is justified, which will be significantly less frequently.

If you have any comment on the ideas or would like to discuss this article in detail, then feel free to email me.

- © Fairfax NZ News