EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Insurance Brokers' Monthly and Insurance Adviser, Sep 2005 by Woodruffe, Charles

Motivating employees - the downhill cycle

An experienced insurance manager carried out some successful reforms on first joining the organisation - during the honeymoon period when the new appointee can do little wrong, and is listened to by his peers.

But in accordance with the theory about to be put forward, six years later he was finding that his superiors had become less willing to accept his recommendations as the years went by. The same thing was happening to his colleagues within their own employment cycle.

As the managers became 'part of the furniture' within the organisation, so the firm became more reluctant to accept in-house advice. Too often, outside help was sought when the answers already lay within the organisation itself.

Unable to push through a particular market initiative with his own employer, this manager wrote a 'name & address supplied' letter to the insurance press highlighting this problem and providing solutions.

When the letter was published, his excited CEO asked the manager to ascertain the source of the letter. "He seems to know what he is talking about. Get him in for lunch and let's hear what he has to say."

The manager derived little pleasure in telling his crestfallen CEO that the author was not only already sitting in front of him, but that this issue had been raised in this very office a few months ago, only to be dismissed as irrelevant.

The manager moved on to seek new challenges shortly after - as did many of his colleagues when their turn came.

It seems the process of diminished motivation can begin as soon as the honeymoon period for many new employees starts to wear off. In the accompanying article Dr Charles Woodruffe, managing director of business psychology firm Human Assets goes further.

He believes that so often in an employee's relationship with an employer, the process of attrition of morale and energy can begin almost the instant a new employee takes up a position - a commercially nonsensical situation. He explains the steps organisations can take to earn the intellectual and emotional commitment of their people

A.N.

"I love work," the Victorian humorist Jerome K. Jerome remarks in his comic masterpiece Three Men in a Boat'. "I could watch it for hours."

But the energy and sheer verve of his book leave us in no doubt that, in fact, he certainly did adore his work as a comic writer. The success of the book, which has never been out of print, reminds us that the fruits of truly passionate and devoted work can even live on beyond our natural life spans.

Most of us, though, don't seek immortality in our work but rather the supreme pleasure of complete focus and concentration on something we really want to do.

The question is, how can organisations absolutely maximise the proportion of their employees who regard their jobs in this way?

Chief executives of most organisations rarely miss an opportunity to remind their audience that their people are their most precious asset.

Certainly, in highly sophisticated markets like financial services where 'metoo' products and services abound, sheer commercial logic says an organisation's people represent the most crucial weapon in the bid for competitive supremacy.

The trouble is, organisations rarely put this thinking into practice. Instead, the process of attrition of morale and energy can begin almost the instant a new employee takes up a position. For far too many people, the initial interview that led to them being given the job may represent the most positive and idealistic experience they ever have with the organisation.

All too often, it's downhill all the way after that. This is not only tragic for the people involved, it is also commercially nonsensical. An organisation whose staff aren't fully committed and giving their all, cannot possibly be doing justice to itself at any level.

There are still some chief executives and managing directors who think their employees will be motivated to give a great performance simply because the company has hired them. They see money as a cure-all; their logic being that if they pay their employees enough they'll put up with anything and have no reason to grumble.

But this is very faulty and outdated thinking.

Fortunately, more and more organisations - especially those in the financial services sector - have become attuned to the idea that there is not much point in employing people at all, unless you are going to take steps to make them want to give their very best to you.

And it is more than just money that motivates people when they decide to work for one organisation rather than another. The most important nonfinancial motivations are shown in the adjoining table.

Ultimately, all these elements of positive motivation are contributing factors to the overall level of engagement the employee brings to his or her job. This term 'engagement' is being used increasingly at an organisational level to denote the idea of an employee being fully intellectually and emotionally committed to a particular job, so that he or she wants to give to that job what is known as discretionary effort.