Forster N. - Maximum performance (2005)(en)

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and masseuses. Even during 2002–3, during the post 11 September economic downturn, many of the top 100 companies kept many of these inducements and incentives in place (Levering and Moskowitz, 2001, 2002). Similar incentives can be found in other countries. In Australia the Corporate Research Foundation also publishes an annual list of ‘the best companies to work for’. This shows that the most popular employers in this country offer many of the incentives offered by US companies. These include bonuses for exceptional performance, profit sharing, on-site day care for employees’ children, flexible working arrangements for employees with school-age children, funds for onand off-site development courses, state of the art fitness and/or health centres, health and wellness programmes, all or part health premium coverage, stock or equity options and clothing allowances (Corporate Research Foundation, 2003).

A worldwide study by TMP Worldwide of 6007 organizations revealed that 34.8 per cent believed that ‘managing the careers of their employees’ was the single most important HR issue for their business during 2002–3. One in five believed that how well they did this was the single most important incentive for new employees joining their companies. Other critical issues for these employers were, in ranking order, ‘attracting and selecting new talent’ (23.3 per cent); ‘enhancing leadership skills’ (17.8 per cent); ‘employee remuneration’ (7.5 per cent) and ‘reducing employee headcounts’ (5.5 per cent). One-fifth of these companies were using additional rewards or bonuses to keep key staff; 19.2 per cent were offering leadership and self-development courses for their employees; 14.3 per cent were utilizing career coaching as a retention tool; 14.1 per cent offered mentoring programmes and, last, 12.6 per cent were using pay increases as their main way of retaining their best talent (Karvelas, 2002a). Karvelas also observed that, while financial rewards were important in providing incentives to encourage talented staff to stay with companies, employers had recognized that remuneration was not a panacea. Employees were looking for a broader range of incentives to stay as the competition for staff increased amongst corporations. Michael Del Gigante, CEO of Trans-ACT Communication, made these comments at the time of the release of the TMP survey: ‘[Employees] like to know that they are contributing to the organization and that their contribution is appreciated. They also want to work in an environment that is fun and interesting and tests their abilities. Many are looking for opportunities to learn and grow as a professional, so they can meet or exceed their career goals. It is up to the business to provide these opportunities so the individual can pursue these goals’ (cited by Karvelas, 2002a).

A company that won one of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Work and Family awards in 2001 has built work flexibility

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and family-friendly policies into their organizational culture from the ground up, reflecting the values of the company’s owners. Nothing remarkable in this, you might be thinking, until you consider what the company does. The name of the company is Gavin McCleod Concrete Pumping. It delivers concrete to building sites in one of the most thoroughly male working environments imaginable, characterized traditionally by a macho, long-hours culture. The co-director of the company, Jenni Eastwood, commented that ‘We thought our family was important and Gavin’s experience in the industry told him that if you treat employees well, they reward you with loyalty and more in terms of customer satisfaction and dedication’ (cited by Bachelard, 2001). Significantly, a top US ‘Employer of Choice’, the SAS Institute, also appeared in the ‘top ten’ in Australia during 2001 and was selected the third-best employer to work for in the USA by Fortune in February 2002. This company offers generous maternity leave, free access to tennis and squash courts, flexible working hours, a relaxed dress code, ‘a flexible and encouraging work environment’ and even complimentary breakfasts. The result, according to one employee, is a loyal and highly motivated workforce. The company’s learning and development manager, Neil Hamilton, made these comments after the company received their award:

What we find people looking for is challenging work, a feeling of worth and the add-on things that make the job a more complete place to work. Many of our policies are structured around recognising the need for both family and work. We work on the basis that motivated people will do a better job if we meet their basic human needs.

(Cited by Gerard, 2001)

Many commentators have argued that employers should become more sensitive to the family responsibilities of their employees. As Edgar has observed:

Work and private life cannot be separated; each affects the other; yet managers often act as though what goes on in the workplace is the only thing that affects performance and productivity. It’s not the economy stupid; it’s the heart that people put into their life (both in and out of the workplace) that makes the economy. Things are getting worse not better, despite our much-vaunted work–family policies and bosses still seem blind to the connection between family stress and productivity at work. In my work with companies, we’ve proved that management and supervisor education about creative and flexible work–family practices do lead to significant improvements in morale, job commitment and productivity. These companies have reduced absenteeism, fewer accidents at work, less workplace conflict and improved performance, because trust had been engendered and the old ‘entitlement’ mentality had disappeared. A holistic approach recognised that employees had a stake in the company’s success and that ‘outside’ life matters had to be accommodated.

(Edgar, 1998)

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This quotation brings us full circle to the needs theories reviewed earlier in this chapter. It is clear that companies with the most loyal and motivated workforces utilize a variety of simple motivational devices that reflect the variety of needs that human beings have at different stages in their lives and careers. They do not treat their employees as people who are driven entirely by a single need for financial gain. They also understand that today’s workforces are very diverse, and can include baby-boomers (those born in the 1950s), Generation X (people born after 1970), Generation Y (those born after 1980) and Generation T (the first generation of humans raised with computers from birth), men and women, and people from different cultures. Consequently, they allow their employees to choose from a menu of benefit options that reflect their individual needs and situations, superseding the old ‘one size fits all’ and ‘one benefit can fit everyone’ attitudes that permeated almost all organizations for most of the 20th century.

Summary: bringing ideas about motivation, empowerment and performance together

It used to be a business conundrum, ‘Who comes first: the employees, customers or shareholders?’ That’s never been an issue to me. The employees come first, if they’re happy, satisfied, dedicated and energetic, they’ll take real good care of the customers. When the customers are happy, they come back and that makes the shareholder happy. We are committed to providing our employees with a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, employees will be provided with the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest customer.

(Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines, twice selected by Fortune ‘The best company in the USA to work for’ in the 1990s, cited by Jim Collins in Good to Great, 2001)

In this chapter it has been suggested that there are no magic motivational triggers that leaders or managers can activate in order to make people become instantly more motivated, or want to learn more or work smarter and better. All organizations can do is to create cultures and working environments that can enable individuals who are already intrinsically motivated to perform to the best of their abilities. This indicates that one of the most important ways of lifting motivation and performance levels is to spend as much time and resources as possible selecting and recruiting the right people. And, while it might be quite difficult to motivate another person directly, it is extremely easy to demotivate another person, through discriminatory behaviour, lack of career development opportunities, inequitable reward systems, negative feedback, abuse of positional power, ‘toxic’ behaviour and

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bullying. Having said this, there are ten interlinked principles that can be applied in any organizational setting that should help to enhance employee motivation, empowerment and performance.

1Spend as much time and resources as you can on your recruitment and selection procedures to ensure that you employ only those people whose abilities, beliefs, ambitions and personalities fit very closely with your organization’s vision, future goals, core values, working practices and culture.4 Remember also that your employee requirements may well change and evolve as they grow and develop or as the company changes, so these should not be cast in stone. If you need creative employees, look out for people with a good sense of humour. If potential employees appear to be only interested in how much money they can make with you, be extremely wary about recruiting them.

2Earlier in this chapter, we saw that organizations with a reputation for good employment practices attract and retain the cream of new recruits. For example, when Virgin Airlines was establishing its new operation in Australia during 2000, it had more than 60 applicants for every advertised position in Adelaide alone. The local HR manager Bruce Highfield commented, ‘Receiving more than 2500 applicants for

40positions is absolutely phenomenal, considering unemployment levels are at an historic low. We’ve been most impressed by the calibre of candidates as well as their genuine excitement about working for a people-focused airline’ (cited in The Australian, 20 October 2000). Virgin’s wages levels are not as high as most comparable airlines, but the company does have a long-standing reputation for being a benevolent employer and a fun place to work. If your organization has a reputation for looking after its staff, new recruits will be battering down the doors to join you.

Convention dictates that a company looks after its shareholders first, its customers next and, last of all, looks after its employees. Virgin does the opposite. For us, our employees matter most. It just seems to be common sense to me that if you start off with a happy, well-motivated workforce, you’re much more likely to have happy customers. And, in due course, the resulting profits will make your shareholders happy.

(Richard Branson, Losing My Virginity, 1998)

3 If you can, provide some job security for your employees. A survey by Drake International in 1997 revealed that more than 30 per cent of 500 middle and senior managers considered ‘job security’ to be an important criterion when considering a job move to another employer, well ahead of ‘improved status’ (19.5 per cent); ‘better working conditions’ (9.6 per cent) and ‘more pay’ (4.3 per cent). Almost one-third of the senior managers they surveyed were actively looking for work that

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provided greater job security, and they were willing to take pay cuts of up to $US15 000 a year to get these (Marris, 1997). The chapter on occupational stress also showed that insecurity breeds uncertainty, and uncertainty can lead to demotivation and lower work performance. So try to offer what could now be better described as ‘short to mediumterm employment assurances’, but keep ‘stretching’ people to achieve more for themselves and your organization.

4While there continue to be disagreements about the efficacy of pay-by-results remuneration schemes, there is universal agreement that it is essential to pay people fairly and competitively. So try to provide your people with a competitive and fair wage, with the opportunity to earn more by a known and equitable formula for above-average performance. Encourage profit sharing or share ownership for loyal employees, within sound legal and ethical frameworks, thereby demonstrating, in a very tangible way, the links between personal effort and organizational success. Emphasize these reward systems in your job advertisements. Do not pay discriminatory rates based on gender or race; this is a sure-fire way of ensuring that you will lose good staff. Use a variety of flexible incentives, benefits and services (for example, the provision of day-care centres) that reflect both the changing needs of individual employees and the realities of changing work place demographics, such as the increasing number of dual-career couples and those with responsibilities for young children.

5Whenever possible, allow employees flexibility in their starting and finishing times. Don’t overwork people. In Chapter 2, we saw that the average employee is only mentally productive and creative for a few hours a day, regardless of how long they actually spend at work. Aim to become what Scott Adams (1997) once described as an ‘OA5 company’ (‘Out at Five’).

6Educate people who engage in bullying or ‘toxic’ behaviours or who discriminate against staff on the grounds of gender, culture, race or sexual orientation. If they persist with these behaviours, fire them because they are damaging your business and its ability to compete in the future.

7Invest as much time and money as you can afford in staff learning and development. As we will see in Chapters 9 and 10, the world’s leading companies invest a great deal of time and money in the development and education of their workforces, so that their employees work smarter, faster and more creatively, rather than harder and longer.5

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many organizations. However, since this time the company has flourished. It now operates in three countries and employs 3000 staff in manufacturing, professional services and high-tech software development (Semler, 2001).

Conclusion

Smile. Become genuinely interested in other people. Give honest and sincere appreciation to others. Arouse in people an eager desire to succeed. Remember that the sweetest sound to another person is their name. Encourage others to talk about themselves. Be a good listener and talk in terms of other people’s interests. Make other people feel important and valued. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.

(Abridged from Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, 1994 edn; more than 15 million copies of this influential book have been sold worldwide.)

Taken collectively, the theories described in this chapter can assist leaders and managers in identifying exactly what might be causing motivational problems amongst their staff. If it is a problem of ability, does the employee require a personal development programme? If it is problem of motivation, is the employee in the right job or are her rewards inappropriate? If a particular group of employees are showing signs of demotivation and underperformance, is this the result of a lack of leadership or perceived inequity in their treatment and the financial rewards they receive? If employees are not achieving goals, is this because the goals are unrealistic or because the employees are not clear about what they are? If there is a problem with labour turnover, is this being caused by inadequate recruitment and selection policies, poor management, a lack of career opportunities, or inequitable reward systems? Motivation and performance are the outcomes of a complex cocktail of individual attributes, abilities, personal needs and achievement motivation. These intrinsic drives are mediated by external factors such as the manner in which goals are set, the match between employee expectations and work outcomes, opportunities for advancement at work, learning and development, equity in rewards and the way praise, feedback and financial rewards are provided.

Motivation and performance are also shaped by other contingent factors such as group dynamics, communication, leadership styles and organizational cultures. While the issues of motivation and empowerment may initially appear to be complex, the basic strategies for optimizing these in employees are straightforward and, as with many other facets of leadership and people management, have been understood for centuries. All that leaders and managers need to do is to include the elements that have been described in this chapter in a

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contingent (context-specific) and integrated programme that will enhance employee motivation and performance. To reiterate three points that have already been made in this chapter, this means that leader/managers should seek ways to achieve the following:

1Select and recruit intrinsically motivated and technically skilled people whose personalities and mind-sets will fit in with their organization’s vision, future goals, core values, working practices and culture. It can be very time consuming and difficult to change anyone’s behaviour or attitudes after they have been recruited.

2Create work environments that enable employees to grow and explore, to solve problems, to make discoveries, to innovate and to reach ever-higher personal goals and performance targets.

3Inject some fun into work, and provide an eclectic range of individually tailored financial and non-financial incentives to enhance staff motivation, performance, productivity and organizational loyalty. To reiterate a point made earlier, if your organization has a reputation for looking after its staff, new recruits will batter down the doors to join you.

Each of the motivational and empowerment techniques we have reviewed in this chapter works, and the main reason for using these is to produce employees who are, in a nutshell, energized and enthusiastic when they come to work and want to contribute their very best efforts while they are there. Effective business leader/managers know that such employees are more motivated, creative, productive and loyal than demotivated and unhappy employees. How do they know this? Because they understand that, if people are treated humanely, as fully rounded human beings, they will perform much better than if they are treated inhumanely. Collectively, organizations that have put systems in place to get the best out of their people are known as ‘high involvement organizations’. More significantly, the companies we have looked at in this chapter, who do focus a lot of effort on the motivation, empowerment and performance of their employees, are also commercially successful and profitable for lengthy periods of time (Collins, 2001; Semler, 2001; O’Reilly and Pfeffer, 2000; Collins and Porras, 1996).

You may well ask, and I’m sure the organizational theory people here would, what have people to do with our company’s success? The answer is, everything. There was a time when companies could rely on physical advantages to provide superior shareholder returns – things like geographic spread, technology, strong distribution networks, resource bases and so on. But, with globalisation and much better communications, these advantages have been eroded. I am convinced that at Wesfarmers, we only have two real competitive advantages – our people and our culture; and the latter relies on the former. On the people side, our approach has

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been simple: take the best we can find, give them stimulating jobs, develop them well, encourage innovation, accept that mistakes happen and reward them according to performance.

(Michael Chaney, former CEO of Wesfarmers, during a presentation at the Graduate School of Management, University of Western Australia, Perth, 19 April 2004. Wesfarmers was voted ‘Australian Company of the Year’ in 2002, by the country’s premier business publication The Australian Financial Review and Chaney, ‘Australian Businessman of the Year 2003’, by the Institute of Chartered Accountants. Mr Chaney becomes Chairman of the National Australia Bank in 2005)

Exercise 4.3

Having read through this chapter, please consider how you can translate any new insights you have acquired into your employee motivation and empowerment strategies in the future.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Notes

1A detailed discussion of the variety of employee selection and recruitment procedures that are now available to leaders and managers is beyond the remit of this book. If you would like to know more about these topics, four good starting points are the following. For US readers: Randall S. Schuler and Susan Jackson, Human Resource Management: Positioning for the 21st Century, 6th edn, 1996, West Publishing, chs 7 and 8; for UK readers: Ian Beardwell and Len Holden, Human Resource Management: A Contemporary Perspective, 6th edn, 1998, Pitman Publishing, chs 6 and 7; for Australian readers: Robin Kramar, Peter McGraw and Randall S. Schuler,

Human Resource Management in Australia, 3rd edn, 1997, Addison Wesley Longman, ch. 8; for New Zealand readers: R. Rudman, 1997, Human Resource Management in New Zealand, Longman Paul.

2A short discussion of the enormous remuneration packages routinely paid to company CEOs and Boards of Directors in the 1990s, and the role these played in numerous corporate fraud and bankruptcy cases during 2001–3, can be found in Chapter 12.

3For more information on country-specific employee remuneration schemes and legal frameworks, financial incentives, performance related pay and share-holding, please refer to the following chapters from the books cited in note 1 above: Human Resource Management: Positioning for the 21st Century, chs 12 and 13; Human Resource Management in Australia, ch. 10; Human Resource Management: A Contemporary Perspective, ch. 6; Human Resource Management in New Zealand, ch. 7’.