Does the secret to employee motivation lie in employee engagement surveys?  When HR prepares staff recognition events and programs, does this work towards motivating employees?  Perhaps the secret sauce is in the right combination of merit increases or variable pay plans.  Or perhaps employee motivation is intrinsic and comes from doing work they love.  Every expert has their own theory of what drives motivation and to an extent there is some research to back them up.

We know that recognition is a good thing and that employees want it, however, it’s not the number one motivator.  Our employees work to live, so they need to get paid and creating a good compensation plan could be a great motivator.  However, after an amount of time, we know that pay may no longer be a motivator.  Merit increases are frequently not a motivator because more often than not, there is often no link between performance and pay.

Daniel Pink talks about the secret to high performance in his book Drive, saying that motivation is based out of the “deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world”.  He believes that there are three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose.[i]  We know we can’t always do what we love, all the time; every job has some mundane aspect to it that simply has to get done and you don’t have a choice.  What about those difficult jobs that people take simply to collect a paycheque?   Think Doug Heffernen from “King of Queens” who works in a UPS-like delivery company is quite frank about the fact that he goes to work for a paycheque, not self-fulfillment.

Then there is the concept of employee engagement.  Intuitively, we know that increasing employee engagement improves the bottom line.  While there is some research that employee engagement can improve customer service levels, unfortunately, there is very little third party research proving employee engagement does anything at all to improve profits.[ii]

Some believe in spending less time focusing on the carrot (motivation) and more on the stick (fear and punishment).  Leading by fear is a genuine management philosophy which may work for a short period of time with profitable results.  However, staff eventually suffer burnout from the prolonged exposure to stress and in some provinces, leading by fear may be considered a form of bullying.  The HR Code of Conduct quite simply states that as a profession, we must:   “Support, promote and apply the principles of human rights, equity, dignity and respect in the workplace, within the profession and in society as a whole”.

Another way to motivate employees is to show them how their work has a meaningful, positive impact on others.  Research show that “employees who know how their work has a meaningful, positive impact on others are not just happier than those who don’t; they are vastly more productive, too” according to Wharton management professor Adam Grant.[iii]

Probably the most ground breaking research has been from the Harvard Business Review.  Earlier this year they published their “Breakthrough Ideas for 2010” and the number one breakthrough idea was research that’s proven to motivate your employees.  When surveyed, business leaders said that they thought that “recognition for good work” was the top employee motivator.   However, researchers discovered that progress at work was the top motivator:

“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.  On days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest.”[iv]

So long as our managers are acting like managers and not technical experts, their employees will be motivated to get the job done.  In other words, the Harvard Business Review article recommends that managers:

·         take away workplace politics

·         avoid micromanaging and coach instead

·         provide resources (people, time, skills, money, tools…)

·         build cooperation across teams (no silos or turf protecting!)

·         provide and reinforce a common vision

·         avoid changing goals without input from the team

·         be decisive and move forward

·         generate buy-in and support

Much of our organization’s time and money is dedicated towards motivating our employees and pushing up our employee engagement scores.  Certainly, HR professionals are tired of spinning their wheels trying to improve employee motivation with limited success.  Be decisive, move forward, and apply what research is telling us will really work.