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Understanding and Developing Your (People) Assets (2/4)

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In the second part of our White Paper "Understanding and Developing Your (People) Assets", Carol-Ann Morgan looks in more detail at theories of employee satisfaction, and tackles the issue of how staff can be better engaged by organisations. Part three follows tomorrow…

Motivating the Workforce

In order to understand the needs of the workforce, organisations need to understand what is driving behaviours and what are the key motivating factors for staff members. Most work motivation theories are based on the work of Maslow, though the motivational spectrum is wide and can vary over time for different individuals.

Herzberg’s theory is probably the most well known theoretical framework related to job satisfaction. His model identifies basic “hygiene” factors such as pay and conditions which serve to remove the dissatisfaction from work, rather than promote satisfaction. If these factors are not satisfied, it will impact on employee efficiency. The “satisfiers” are factors which motivate staff, give them an incentive to work and have a direct and positive impact on satisfaction, thereby increasing worker efficiency. The “satisfiers” tend to be related to achievement, recognition, responsibility, and the nature of the work that is done.

Fig 1: Herzeberg’s Theory of Motivation:

Motivational theories can be helpful in looking at groups of staff and understanding where their motivations lie, though satisfaction at work is achieved through a complex interplay of these variables. High pay will rarely compensate for very poor working conditions and swish, modern offices and good working conditions will rarely compensate for very low pay. Research by Theresa Welbourne at the University of Chicago, identified 4 segments of staff based on their motivations at work:

Whether or not Welbourne’s segments are recognisable in your company is unimportant, because if you look, there will be segments of employees that can be found.

Staff Engagement

In recent years, research has shown that employers want employees that will do their best at work, even “go the extra mile”, and employees want good work, jobs that are worthwhile and “turn them on”. With this shift, there has been an increasing focus on staff satisfaction as a component of staff engagement.

Engagement is a combination of commitment to the organisation and its values, plus a willingness to help out colleagues (organisational citizenship). It goes beyond job satisfaction and is not simply motivation. Engagement is something the employee has to offer: it cannot be ‘required’ as part of the employment contract. There are many individual and organisational factors that determine whether employees become engaged, and to what extent they become engaged. Although CIPD research found that although there is no definitive list of engagement drivers, the main drivers of employee engagement are:

• Having opportunities to feed your views upwards
• Feeling well-informed about what is happening in the organisation
• Believing that your manager is committed to your organisation

Smart organisations work to develop and nurture engagement as the benefits speak for themselves. It is important to note, the employee engagement process does require a two-way relationship between employer and employee.
Employees who are engaged with the organisation tend to display particular recognisable primary behaviours. They will…

• Speak positively about the organization to coworkers, potential employees and customers
• Have a strong desire to be a member of the organization
• Give that extra effort to contribute to the organization’s success.

Robinson (2004) and Penna (2007) both espouse a model of engagement which incorporates job satisfaction, feeling valued at work, communication and training & development as key influences on staff engagement and overall satisfaction at work.

Robinson argues that satisfaction with the job of work alone, will not produce a satisfied and engaged workforce, but it is a contributory with many other factors. This phenomena can be seen in some positions where the actual job itself is intrinsically satisfying but the place of work is not, for example academics or specialised maintenance trades operating in large organisations. In these situations, the employee feels the organisation does not value the job they do, but they, personally, take great pride in their work, regardless of the company culture and working environment.

Fig 2: Robinson et al (2004) model of the drivers of employee engagement

Penna’s model (2007) adopts a similar position. This model indicates that staff are seeking to find “meaning” at work. Penna defines “meaning” as fulfilment from the job. Fulfilment comes from the employee being valued and appreciated, having a sense of belonging to the organisation, and feeling as though they are making a contribution, and is congruent with the underlying theoretical framework of Robinson.

Fig 3: Penna’s hierarchy of engagement (2007)

Penna’s model is also remarkably similar to both Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and Herzberg’s theory, with “hygiene” factors at the base of the triangle and “satisfiers” towards the top. As an organisation successfully meets each of these engagement factors, Penna states that the organisation becomes more attractive to new potential employees and becomes more engaging to its existing staff.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 9:08 am and is filed under Carol Ann Morgan, White Papers, Employee Satisfaction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.