JOB CONTENT
Managers often overlook elements of the work itself that can be highly motivating to employees: autonomy, flexibility, and challenge to name but a few such elements.
Employees need to know what is expected of them and to be given the opportunity to do what they do best every day at work. All performance thus starts with clear goals and expectations. How you set goals for your employees is important, not just for clarity as to what needs to be done, but also for the motivational value it can add for the employee if you do it right. The best goal-setting has three common elements:
- The best goals are few in number, specific in purpose. Even with all the talk about multitasking, ultimately a person can focus on only one thing at a time. So the greater the number of goals you have, the less likely any of those goals will get worked on, let alone finished.
- The best goals are not too easy and not too hard. If a goal is too easy, we tend to not even try to do it. If it's too difficult and we don't think we can achieve it, this also inhibits our efforts to attempt the task. The best goals are somewhere in between these two extremes, some say ideally having a 70 percent chance of completion.
- The best goals are collaborative in nature. The days of telling employees what to do are over. You need to discuss goals with employees and get their input to get their buy in to make them their goals. Otherwise, you're less likely to get their best effort. If you can link the goal to something you know is of interest to the employee, all the better.
As management theorist Frederick Herzberg put it, “If you want someone to do a good job, give them a good job to do.” Find out what tasks your employees most enjoy and excel at, and use that information to link them to relevant needs of the organization.
By allowing your employees flexibility in setting their own priorities, in the specifics of how they handle their work, or even in their choice of working hours you can establish a relationship of trust and respect instead of “my way or the highway.” To the extent that managers of the organization are able to provide those motivators for employees, their employees' level of engagement will be greatly impacted, and they'll be better able to do the best work possible.
If it makes sense, we should probably allow it.
—JEFF WEINER, CEO, LINKEDIN
In my research into what most motivates employees at work, “flexibility of working hours” was one of the top motivators for today's employees. Many managers and companies have found that giving employees the options of a flexible schedule or telecommuting has increased employee engagement. For some, the attraction is less time spent commuting each week and saving money on gas or mileage. Others may find it beneficial to limit childcare expenses or simply to have the opportunity to spend more time with their families. Whatever the motivation, employees appreciate the option of being able to have some control over their own work and, as a result, feel as though the company has their best interests in mind. Other options for increasing flexibility include:
- Alternate hours (arriving early and leaving early or vice versa).
- Four-day work weeks, in which longer hours are worked on fewer days.
- Telecommuting.
- Job sharing.
- Allowing an employee to leave work early when necessary or take time off to compensate for extra hours worked.
Following are other examples of how the job itself can serve to better engage employees.
People want to learn new things, to feel they've made a contribution—that they are doing worthwhile work. Few people are motivated only by money. People want to feel that what they do makes a difference in the world.
—FRANCES HESSELBEIN, PRESIDENT, LEADER TO LEADER
Entertainment agency ZinePak empowers its employees to manage their own time, including working remotely. Cofounder Kim Kaupe says employees are more invested in getting the work done as efficiently as possible, something they were not achieving by making sure they were in their chairs by 9 A.M.
At Johnson County Government, seated in Olathe, Kansas, departments are empowered to operate in ways that work for them. An “Employee Engagement Best Practices Playbook” helps guide each individual and each department with their planning.
Gaming software company Valve asks employees to help make a “crazy” handbook for new hires. Employees contribute funny drawings and phrases.
Marco Bizzari, CEO of Gucci, says, “The person making decisions should be the one with the most knowledge, not the most senior person, and that could be a twenty-five-year-old kid.” To get a different and fresh perspective, Bizzari regularly confers with two committees, Comex and Shadow Comex, whose members are under the age of thirty.
Richard Knowles, a former plant manager for chemical manufacturer E.I. du Pont de Nemours in Belle, West Virginia, found that when he set goals for his employees, he often set them too low. He therefore stopped doing so, instead relying on them to donate their discretionary energy when they found meaning in their work.
By way of its results-only work environment (ROWE), consumer electronics retailer Best Buy of Richfield, Minnesota, allows employees to decide for themselves where, when, and how they work as long as they get results. Employees start and end their workdays around a core set of hours and are given complete freedom to determine their own schedules. According to the company, productivity has increased 35 percent for employees working in the ROWE program—which will save the company approximately $13 million per year when all 4,000 employees are brought into the system.
At online music powerhouse Pandora Media, founder and chief strategy officer Tim Westergren pushed decision-making authority down to Pandora's workforce. The result is a strong culture of employee involvement and engagement where coworkers develop deep and long-lasting bonds with their coworkers. When new employees arrive for their first day of work, they are taken through an orientation process that introduces Pandora's culture to them—including making decisions with the smallest number of people possible. According to Westergren, the results of Pandora's approach has been quite positive for the company: “You become much more nimble. So you are able to make decisions quickly. It saves people time and makes them more efficient, which makes them happier. It also gives people a real sense of ownership.”
Involving individuals in the business is the most effective way to produce an organization in which people know more, care more, and do the right things.
—EDWARD LAWLER III, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Jorge Perez—founder, chairman, and CEO of The Related Group, a construction firm located in Miami, Florida—feels that creating a culture where he can entrust his employees with making even the most important decisions for the company is essential for its long-term growth. According to Perez, there are a few things organizations can do to ensure they have the right people with the right decision-making skills on board:
- Hire tough. Perez's philosophy is that if you hire tough, then you manage easy. You have to take the time required to find and hire stars.
- Create a personal road map. Establish each employee's goals and parameters, then provide praise and corrections along the way.
- Dole out more risk. Give employees progressively more authority—and risk—the longer they are with the company and the more they show they are able to handle it. As Perez says, “Give them the keys to the scooter before the keys to the Harley.”
Employees at Park Ridge Hospital in Hendersonville, North Carolina, are given the authority to issue patients apologies and small-denomination gift cards when there are glitches in service delivery, such as having to wait several hours for tests when the required equipment breaks.
At Internet services company Google, engineers are given permission to devote up to 20 percent of their time to doing projects of their own choosing. Products resulting from this policy include Gmail, Google News, Orkut, Google Sky, and Google Grants.
Online retailer Zappos empowers call-center service agents to use their judgment to do whatever it takes to delight the company's customers without the prewritten scripts and time limits typical for most call centers. The company's annual revenues are fast approaching $2 billion.
Outdoor clothing manufacturer Patagonia of Ventura, California, allows employees to make personalized work schedules that enable them to pursue their interests during the course of a typical workday, which might include surfing in the morning or taking a hike in the afternoon. Not only are employees more engaged with their employer, but they are more connected to the products the company sells.
We have challenges—but they always make us better and stronger.
—MARK PARKER, CEO, NIKE
Employees at incentive company Achievers in Toronto, Ontario, get to lead the vision committee of their choice. Members of committees devote about one day a week to work on committee goals, which can range from revising the company dress code to creating new marketing campaigns. When the company moved into a new space three times larger than the one they were leaving behind, members of its Culture Up the Office group were tasked with conceptualizing the employee break area, including updates on company and work-unit goals.
Auto parts manufacturer Dana Corporation of Toledo, Ohio, requires each of its employees to make at least two suggestions for improvement each month. If the changes proposed would cost the company less than $500, then the employees do not need permission from the plant manager to put them into effect themselves. The program, known as Bright Ideas, has saved Dana millions of dollars.
Individual stores within the Flight Centre UK travel agency, headquartered in the United Kingdom, are encouraged to consider themselves semiautonomous businesses within the larger organization. Each of the store's six or seven employees takes on different roles, such as marketing, finance, and customer service. Managing director Chris Galanty reports that employees feel like they are managing their own business, while developing new skills along the way. “This is a customer-facing company, and better-engaged staff give better service and make more money.”
I think our story proves there's absolutely no limit to what plain, ordinary, working people can accomplish if they're given the opportunity and encouragement to do their best.
—SAM WALTON, FOUNDER, WALMART
Everyone is encouraged to “work like they own the company” at Hilcorp Energy, and “decision-making is pushed to the front lines.” Cash buy-in plans allow workers to own a piece of the company's projects and eventual profits, which staffers say rewards hard work. As a result, employees receive annual bonuses that average about 36 percent of their salary, but 60 percent is not unusual.
To consistently review online customer feedback, New York jewelry company BaubleBar created a dedicated team called SWAT (service with accessorizing talent). Company cofounder Daniella Yacobovsky says, “Once a customer was upset because earrings she needed to wear as a bridesmaid had sold out. A SWAT stylist tracked down a sample pair and rushed the package to her.”
According to Ilir Sela, founder and CEO of Slice, the company is in the business of ordering pizza. Sela says, “Early on, if a customer complained about food, we'd direct them to the restaurant—we thought we only had to own the ordering component. But we have to own the full experience.” The company now solves customer issues with both the computer and the restaurants. Slice employees leave online complaints as they are reported and respond directly to them online. Anyone can see how problems are resolved.
Companies like Genentech, Georgetown University Hospitals, and Hermann Miller have employees shaping their work by allocating chunks of discretionary time to pursue projects of their own choosing. Holly Butler, senior staffing manager for Genentech's research group, says, “Discretionary time is a huge piece of why they want to work at Genentech. It is Disneyland for scientists.”
The need to pay more attention to quality and productivity is another reason for frontline workers' increased involvement in production decisions. Flexible, highly skilled employees can provide better service than do workers who can offer only narrow specialized service.
—RAY MARSHALL, FORMER US SECRETARY OF LABOR
To encourage more innovation and enjoyment at work, Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, founders of Australian software firm Atlassian, asked employees to devote one workday toward solving any problem, as long as it was not connected to their official role. As a result, Atlassian developed new products and was able to resolve issues with existing ones. The program is now a fundamental part of the Atlassian work environment.
Because of unhappy employees and an annual turnover rate of 35 percent at St. Lucie Medical Center in Florida, executive leadership analyzed the capabilities and responsibilities of its workforce. They completed talent inventories and developed ideas to better build and align teams. The result: Overall attrition rates dropped significantly after two years. It dropped almost 50 percent for nursing roles. Physician satisfaction scores also improved, going up by 72 percent. Patient satisfaction increased 160 percent compared to similar hospitals.
Toyota's North American Parts Center inadvertently shifted into a traditional Western supervisor-employee culture within a year and a half of starting operations in California. To change this cultural orientation, the company sent all managers to a four-day workshop to become aware of each person's talent assets and to plan ways to better apply their talents to individual and team situations. In addition, warehouse employees participated in Learn at Lunch meetings to develop plans to use their talents more effectively. The overall result for the entire employee population of 400 workers on fifty-four teams: Productivity increased 6 percent after the first year. Productivity went up 9 percent for workshop participants.
There are no managers or hierarchy at video-game developer Valve. Employees work directly with one another. New hires are selected by committees, and anyone can work on any project in the company. There are peer reviews for bonuses and disciplinary actions. The result: The company is now worth $4.1 billion.
You get a sense that you own the business. That means you're going to spend a lot less time worrying about whose toes you're going to tread on and much more time worrying about how you're going to move that business forward.
—JAMES A. MEEHAN, MANAGER, GENERAL ELECTRIC
At each Costco store, the big-box giant based in Issaquah, Washington, employees are given great autonomy. Warehouse managers have authority to recruit and manage their staffs with little oversight from corporate headquarters. There are written management guidelines. Every three years, employees give feedback on the guidelines, which often results in improvements.
Gensler, the architectural firm based in San Francisco, provides employees with greater control over their physical workspace. Employee surveys resulted in more innovation, greater job satisfaction and performance, and improved focus for people working in open-space areas.
To help design new company uniforms, Alaska Airlines surveyed thousands of employees to get their preferences, needs, and suggestions. Many focus groups were also held. More than anything, employees asked for more pockets and timeless silhouettes that flattered a variety of body types. To accommodate the ever-changing climates the airline crews travel to, the new uniforms are designed to be layered.
My goal is to give them the tools to succeed. But I hold them accountable to execute our business plans.
—STEPHEN HOLMES, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, WYNDHAM WORLDWIDE
At Xerox, one customer service center turned decisions about work schedules over to the employees. With employee work teams in charge of the scheduling, the company reported higher morale, better customer service, and a 30 percent reduction in absenteeism.
Reference International Software in San Francisco allows one day a week for customer service reps to work on any project they choose. Some results have included better systems and new, salable products, in addition to greatly enhanced employee morale.
The president of Pizza Hut asked employees how to eliminate needless paperwork and tasks and improve their working conditions. The result was a company with fewer layers of management, less corporate paperwork, and a 40 percent growth in sales.
At Nucor, executives say almost all of the best new ideas come from the factory floor, and new hires often come up with them. Because of this, the newest workers are sent to existing plants to hunt for improvement opportunities and, longer-term workers are sent to newly acquired plants to see what they can learn from them. To minimize layers of management, Nucor has pushed work that used to be done by supervisors, such as ordering parts, down to line workers and pushed the duties of plant managers down to supervisors. CEO DiMicco says his executive vice presidents are like “mini CEOs, and he is their board.”
Charlene Pedrolie, manufacturing chief at Virginia's Rowe Furniture Company, believed that the people doing the work should design how the work is done. They moved from an environment in which each person handled part of a process to fully cross-trained manufacturing cells producing a whole product.
At Ohio's Monarch Marking Systems, managers instituted a “small set of simple rules” to change the mindset of employees. They required people to participate on teams formed specifically to improve a particular performance metric. Teams were allowed no more than thirty days to form the team, study a problem, and implement a solution. More than 100 teams have met with success and improved the organization's engagement scores.
Edward Jones, the fourth-largest financial advisory firm in the United States, was facing a cost-cutting dilemma: Cut jobs or find other ways to save $100 million to offset lost revenue. The company turned to its associates to come up with cost-saving ideas. Management picked the best ideas. When the results were tallied, the company saved $120 million—and gained the commitment of its people.
CASE STUDY: MAKING UNGLAMOROUS WORK ENGAGING
Often, a manager thinks, “But the work we need to have done is boring and unexciting. How can that work be made to engage employees?” The first step is to at least try. Kevin Sheridan, a leading employee engagement expert, shares the example of just such work in his book Building a Magnetic Culture.
Susan Young, director of Minneapolis Solid Waste and Recycling, has worked for the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota, for over twenty years. She is quick to boast that her city has been ranked the fifth cleanest city in the world. Young oversees 158 direct employees as well as a very large base of contract workers. She says her employees are engaged for a myriad of reasons, including that “expectations are very clear here. A clean city is a job well done.”
Young's staff members enjoy the stability of an industry that will always be needed. However, Young says they earn their jobs every day, since they are one of the only cities in Minnesota that does not outsource waste management services. If they continue to be successful in providing cost-effective service for their city, their jobs will not be lost to an outside company. Job security is a major retention factor for employees, and they work hard because they feel their fate is in their own hands.
Many of Young's employees are independent workers who enjoy being in a field where “someone isn't looking over their shoulder all the time.” Staff members have the autonomy to go out and do what needs to be done, and go home when they are finished. This freedom motivates employees to work hard so they can end their shifts early and have a more positive work-life balance.
Employees are motivated by their role in making Minneapolis a great place to live. They can actively see the difference their jobs make, and that evokes a sense of pride in their work. Young also wants to motivate her staff through monetary rewards but has limited resources to do so. She gives a small cash award out of her own pocket in a drawing once a year at the annual employee event. Workers who haven't missed more than a couple of shifts that year are eligible to win. She finds this to be a great way to reward her top employees and to show them she personally cares about them as people. Employees truly value working for the City of Minneapolis, and some have been on board for thirty years.