Studies hark back over 30 years; all reveal the same ubiquitous outcome. Employees are not just driven by paychecks. Pizza Friday is a great motivator but beyond cheese topped tomato sauce on a bread base, lay other incentives betwixt ambition.
Feeling Valued
Time and again stats show that employees want and need to be valued. To feel valued. This is not a time for insincerity. Being situational, praise will need to be diverse however reward itself doesn’t have to be a “job well done” comment. As mentioned, pizza Friday goes further than monetary increase (apparently). It could be giving managerial time when you have it. Time, being the most precious asset to us all.
A Sense of Belonging
Belonging is more than existence within the conglomerate. One needs to feel able to express him/herself without judgement. Such legitimacy depends on the environment allowing. Encouraging ‘no wrong idea’ values and an open floor of discussion without scrutiny where appropriate could be more than beneficial for just the company. Human psychology dictates that we need to feel able to be ourselves in order to feel truly accepted.
Control Over Work
Opportunity for growth and learning will allow any individual with the desire, to excel. Opportunity being the operative word. Control usually translates as a desire for more freedom, apply this then to one’s work. More freedom to advance, or even participate in field trips and venturing beyond the office can only benefit work. It needn’t really be said: no one wants to be over-supervised either.
Leadership
Believe it or not humanity likes to be lead. This creates certainty in any action. A clear structure and clear outcome is the rationale behind the work. Good leadership also heavily requires consistency. To better understand this, realising the importance of soft skills will be imperative.
Company Culture
The words through your stick of rock, metaphorically speaking, will be the omnipresence of company ethos. Cut the rock open and the words remain the same on every cross section. If staff are under-performing then seek to better understand why. Sacking people without communicating in the long term is not beneficial, not for morale, nor for budgets.
To help create a better company culture, relate your structuring to your identity. Beyond this, consider the wants of employees, in 2018 this might be flexible working hours, rotation of tasks, the opportunity to flex departments for a considered time frame, where skills are transferable. It will be paramount to discuss with employees to better realise their motives.
