Employee Motivation

Nonmonetary Ways of Motivating Employees

Photo courtesy of Employee BenefitsOpens in new window Employees who can behave autonomously, solve problems, and take the initiative, are apt to be the very ones who will leave if they find their own needs are not being met—namely:

1. the need for work-life balance,
2. the need to expand skills,
3. the need for a positive work environment, and
4. the need to matter—to find meaning in their work.

While one of the most effective ways of motivating employees is an age-old, tried and tested one—give them a raise; as evidenced from the needs mentioned in previous sessionOpens in new window, there are many other nonmonetary ways that an employee might feel motivated to give a 110% to the organization they are part of.

This session discusses some nonmonetary ways leaders can motivate their direct reports and improve productivity within their group, team, department, and ultimately the organization.

Work-Life Balance

Among the employer offerings designed to cater to the desire for work–life balance for some employees are work–life benefits, flextime, and vacation/sabbatical time.

1.     Work–Life

The purpose of such benefits is to remove barriers that make it hard for people to strike a balance between their work and personal lives such as allowing parents time off to take care of sick children.

Work–life benefits include:

2.     Flextime.

3.     Vacations and sabbaticals.

Some organizations let their employees take paid sabbaticals—an extended vacation. Many technology firms offer unlimited paid time off. Whatever the arrangement, the aim is to enable employees to reenergize themselves but also to cement their loyalty to the organization.

4.     Opportunity to expand skills.

Employees increasingly are looking to work at organizations that offer them professional or career growth and development opportunities. Learning opportunities can take three forms:

1. Studying coworkers. Leaders can see that employees are matched with coworkers from whom they can learn, allowing them, for instance to “shadow” (watch and imitate) workers in other jobs or be in interdepartmental task forces.
2. Tuition reimbursement. There can also be tuition reimbursement for part-time study at a college or university.
3. Learning and development. Organizations also spend a great deal of money on employee learning and development—both instructor- and non-instructor led training and development efforts.

5.    Positive work environment.

A positive work environment makes employees feel good about coming to work, and this provides the motivation to sustain them and make them feel like valued members of the organization. Some things leaders can do include:

Recognition

Most people like to feel appreciated. If you have ever spent a day cooking a meal for someone who gobbled it up without saying a word, or two weeks doing a report for a boss who did not even say, “Thanks,” let alone, “Good job,” you know the importance of having your work recognized and appreciated.

Many companies therefore formalize the common sense process of saying “Thank you for a job well-done.” For example, one organization gives what it calls bell-ringer awards for good work: A bell is rung in the corridor while the person is formally recognized by his or her boss. At ShackNationOpens in new window, the CEO recognizes teamsOpens in new window on work anniversaries and birthdays by writing a hand-written note thanking them for the hard work they put in each day and highlighting some of their recent achievements.

O. C. Tanner works to keep recognition fresh and unique with reward initiatives ranging from custom trophies, to social buttons, merchandise, gift cards, and emblematic and symbolic awards. More importantly, they work hard on building a culture that has employees recognizing great work of other employees. In turn, this helps employees build better relationships and a teamwork mentality.

The tech giant, Google, wants their employees to feel valued when they walk into work. As such, Google has created a “gThanks” program where employees can give recognition to their coworkers for a job well-done.

Besides giving thanks, employees can also nominate each other with the peer bonuses program where coworkers can receive a bonus of $175. Another aspect of this employee participation culture is a designated area developed from one Google department called “Wall of Happy” where workers can place thank you notes and emails that recognize hard work and achievements to display and motivate others. Lastly, other Google recognition awards range from spot bonuses to personalized awards.

Leaders must identify which kinds of behaviors they reward. “The things that get rewarded get done” is what one author calls “The Greatest Management Principle in the World.” With this in mind, the author describes ten types of behavior that should be recognized to motivate high performance.

Organizations and leaders should reward the following:

Job Redesign

Leaders have long been concerned about the unmotivating qualities of highly specialized, short-cycle, assembly-line jobs that are monotonous and boring. In an effort to respond to this problem, many employers set up programs to redesign those jobs.

The basic issue in job redesign is whether jobs should be more specialized or, at the other extreme, more “enriched” and less routine.

An important aspect of job redesign leaders can make use of is job rotation, or cross trainingOpens in new window.

Job redesign can help increase not only job satisfaction, but also the employee’s individual commitment to the organization. A reduction in boredom and increase in motivation benefits both the employee and the company. Thus, by taking the components of job design and introducing job redesign, leaders can help motivate employees in a different way and better address employees being bored, possibly looking elsewhere, or actually leaving the organization.

Empowering Employees

Empowering employees has become a popular approach to work organizations. It means giving employees the authority, tools, and information they need to do their jobs with greater autonomyOpens in new window, as well as the self-confidence required to perform their new duties effectively.

Empowering is inherently a motivational approach. It boosts employees’ feelings of self-efficacyOpens in new window and enables them to meet their potential, satisfying high-level needs for achievement, recognition, and self-actualizationOpens in new window.

Empowerment results in changes in employees’ outlook: from feeling powerless to believing strongly in their own personal effectiveness. The result is that employees become willing to take more initiative and persevere in achieving their goals and their organization’s vision even in the face of obstacles.

Additionally, studies show that empowered employees are more satisfied with their jobs, and it is one of the biggest factors in creating a great customer experience. Instead of waiting for results, issues can be solved immediately in the way that best meets customers’ needs.

Empowering does not just mean assigning broader job responsibilities. TeamsOpens in new window also need the training, skills, and tools to allow them to do their jobs, such as knowing how to make consensus decisions. Firms like Saturn also made sure their leaders actually let their people do their jobs as assigned.

In virtually all cases of empowering employees, employees find empowerment exciting, while employers find it helps workers to enjoy using their potential to achieve new goals, thereby boosting motivation and employee commitment.

The guidelines below can make leaders more successful in empowering their employees:

Goal Setting

OrganizationsOpens in new window often rely on goals to motivate employees and clarify their role perceptions by establishing performance objectives.

Specifically, goal setting potentially amplifies the employee’s intensity and persistence of effort and channels that is geared toward specific behaviors and outcomes.

Goal setting is more complex than simply telling a direct report to “do your best.” Effective goals derive from an organization’s vision, mission, and strategy and have several characteristics. One popular acronym—SMARTER—introduced earlier captures these characteristics fairly well:

• Specific. Goals lead to better performance when they are specific. Specific goals state what needs to be accomplished, how it should be accomplished, as well as where, when, and with whom it should be accomplished. Specific goals clarify performance expectations, so employees can direct their effort more efficiently and reliably.
• Measurable. Goals need to be measurable because motivation occurs when people have some indication of their progress and achievement of those goals. This measurement ideally includes how much (quantity), how well (quality), and at what cost the goal was achieved. However, some types of employee performance are difficult to measure, and they risk being neglected in organizations preoccupied with quantifiable goals.

• Achievable. One of the most difficult aspects of goal setting is developing goals that are sufficiently but not overly challenging.
  
  Easy goals motivate employees far below their potential effort. Yet, goals that are too challenging may also lead to reduced effort if employees believe there is a low probability of accomplishing them. It has also been noted that very difficult goals increase the probability that employees will engage in unethical behavior to achieve them.
• Relevant. Goals need to be relevant to the individual’s job and within her or his control. For example, a goal to reduce waste materials would have little value if employees do not have much control over waste in the production process.
• Time-framed. Goals need a due date. They should specify when the objective should be completed or when it will be assessed for comparison against a standard.
• Exciting. Goals tend to be more effective when employees are committed to them, not just compliant. Challenging goals tend to be more exciting for most (but not all) employees because they are more likely to fulfill a person’s growth needs when the goal is achieved. Goal commitment also increases when employees are involved in goal setting.
• Reviewed. The motivational value of goal setting depends on employees receiving feedback about reaching those goals.

Setting specific goals with your employees can be one of the simplest yet most powerful ways of motivating them. Like the SMARTER model, there are many ideas on how to set goals that motivate employees and here is a summary:

Lifelong Learning

Many employers today face a tremendous dilemma. On the one hand, in order to be competitive, an organization needs highly committed employees who exercise self-discipline and, basically do their jobs as if they owned the organization.

On the other hand, competitive pressures have forced many companies to downsize, which decreases employee motivation and commitment. They may question, for example, whether it pays for them to work their hearts out for the organization.

Organizations are increasingly using lifelong learning (to include sabbaticals and learning and development as mentioned earlier) to address both of these issues simultaneously.

Implemented properly, lifelong learning programs can achieve three things.

• First, the learning, development, and education provide employees with the decision-making and other knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to work competently in a demanding, team-based job.
• Second, the opportunity for lifelong learning is inherently motivational: It gives employees the ability to fulfill their potential, it boosts their sense of self-efficacy, and it helps them gain the sense of achievement that motivation theorists argue is so important.
• Third, lifelong learning can help alleviate the potential negative effects of downsizing by giving employees useful and marketable new skills.

It is never easy to evaluate the success of lifelong learning initiatives because not all employees choose to participate, and many other factors affect productivity and employee motivation. The evidence suggests, however, that lifelong learning programs improve commitment, skills, motivation, and possibly productivity too.

Leaders can help their organizations make use of lifelong learning as a motivator by working to build a company culture that supports lifelong learning. This means that their organizations will need to establish cultures focused on personal growth.

One of the ways to cultivate a learning culture at work is to tie learning into performance. At each review (annual, or more frequent one-on-ones), it is worth establishing L&D Opens in new window goals for employees. Leaders and their organizations must make sure these goals are documented and can be measured. They can be as simple as cross-training in another department or as ambitious as attaining an advanced degree.

Most people learn at work through their peers. By identifying subject matter experts, organizations can integrate them into the learning environment. This can be done through peer-led L&D or simple on the job shadowing.

Linking learning activities with core competencies through subject matter experts help foster growth as well as increase institutional knowledge. Additionally, it also encourages mentorship and cross-generational collaboration, and helps to future-proof the leader’s organization. As leaders and subject matter experts move on or retire, their organizations don’t want that knowledge to go away with them.

In sum, nonmonetary ways of motivating employees do not involve money payments. These are also important in motivating employees as they bring in psychological and emotional satisfaction to them. These include so many techniques. People do work for money—but they work even more for meaning in their lives.

Leaders should understand that regardless of which theory of employee motivation they may prefer, the best way to motivate their direct reports is to focus on things like providing them with interesting work, appreciation, pay, good working conditions, and job security.