PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
How to manage workforce motivation in 2021 and beyond
James Moorhouse, Director, ABN Resource Sponsored by
With significant workplace changes as a consequence of Covid19 how can organisations help their teams remain motivated and engaged? Particularly when working from home means many employees are left to simply work alone? Much is made of regular communication, interaction and empathy but understanding team morale, motivating teams and maintaining self-motivation, has moved on from simply survival and a traditional “carrot and stick” management approach. Where completion of a task was previously met with reward or punishment, this commonly used style of management can actually diminish performance, crush creativity, foster short term thinking and at its worst, create unethical behaviour and disloyalty.
New motivation theories indicate that everyone has an innate need to direct their own lives, to learn, create new things, to do better. To remain motivated the performance of the task has to provide an intrinsic reward. If someone enjoys what they do, naturally they will be motivated. But if they need help to enjoy their task or if the company is looking to build a high-performance work culture, helping individuals to develop Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose will reap rewards for both management and staff in creating a more motivated and integrated workforce.
Autonomy:
People need autonomy over what they do, when they do it and how they do it. A results only management style could work well here. Rather than stifling people with a million KPI’s, agree on a clear goal, a timescale and allow them the freedom to deliver the result in their own individual way. Leading tech organisations like Apple, Amazon, Google have done this and come up with some world-changing ideas along the way!
38 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.161 FEBRUARY 2021 Mastery:
Mastery is driven by the individual’s natural urge to get better at something; in order for your team to achieve this, they must be fully engaged in their task which must also be aligned with their abilities. Successfully achieving mastery can lead to exceeding goals, expectations and performance. This requires achieving “flow” where challenges are matched by an individual’s abilities. So setting “goldilocks tasks,” (not too hard, not too easy), will help build an individual’s abilities, confidence and inspire a personal aim towards achieving mastery.
Mastery is also a mindset. An individual’s abilities are not finite and there is always room to improve and enhance skills, but mastery also requires effort, practice and determination. For organisations who are hiring or looking to develop team functions, these are all good traits to identify in an individual’s personality when building a team.
Purpose:
Purpose can be a hugely powerful motivator. A compelling company mission or vision can be a great provider of purpose and inspire a company’s workforce to fully engage. Make sure purpose is clearly communicated and wherever possible, involve your team on setting the purpose so they have more ownership of the idea. Individual and team goal setting will help motivate an individual and encourage an employee towards developing their own workflow autonomy and achieving mastery.
LINK
www.abnresource.com
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