BANKER’S QUERY
Motivating
Long-Term Employees
Individualized
Motivation Plans
People aren’t ever “lazy.” They may be bored and without enthusiasm, but these are
symptoms of workers without goals or interests.
The phenomenon of “the motivation cycle” governs
our behavior. When you have a “need,” the strength of that need, whether
it is food, drink, praise, or feelings of satisfaction, sends you into action to attain a
goal that satisfies the need. And the strength of the need determines the strength
of the action. Thus, what appears to be a “lazy” or “bored”
worker is really an individual who does not see rewards that are worth a more intense work
ethic.
Of equal importance is that, when you are blocked from
reaching desired goals, you experience frustration, characterized by feelings of anger,
hostility, depression and other negative reactions that translate to behavioral or
performance problems on the job.
With this explanation as a background, it is clear why
some of your long-term employees work below potential and resist efforts to push them or
make changes in their routine. There just isn’t “anything in it for
them.” What is needed is to bring back to their work environment the
opportunities to enjoy rewards proportional to improved performance and attitude.
A number of specific steps can be taken - which also are
effective with any and all employees at all levels - to reestablish a motivational reward
system. Described next is a simple process that is based on sound and workable
concepts.
Prepare
a Profile of the Target Individual
This calls for a study of the person’s
“motivational fingerprints.” People reveal their interests, desires, and
aspirations. Thus, when you study elements of behavior, it becomes possible to
discern what makes people tick.
Listing everything you know about an individual, from
noting his or her style of dress to identifying parts of the job that are both most
and least favored, “value patterns” begin to emerge: that is, what the person
responds to best. Consequently, making an adjustment in job duties to add desired
functions and remove less favored parts could be effective in bringing an immediate
improvement in productivity. Providing recognition on a more frequent basis might be
a stimulus to employees who see themselves as taken for granted. There are many
nonfinancial incentives that can be discerned from better understanding what it is a
particular individual sees as desirable.
The establishment of an individualized motivation plan for
each employee who is performing below potential and matching rewards to improvements is not
theoretical. It is the recognition of physiological and psychological
principles. For example, understanding that a person's on-job behavior may be due to
a problem at home can lead to finding assistance through an employee assistance program or
other counseling. Removing that frustration has a direct and immediate impact.
Likewise, giving a manager who appears to be in a deep rut
some periodic extra assignments of a nature that the study reveals he or she relishes will
bring about a more upbeat attitude with a spin-off of better performance in other parts of
the job.
Group
Motivation - Applying Self-Competition
Unless they are totally turned off and beyond any hope of
motivating, most employees respond to a competitive environment. Moreover,
competition with one’s self usually is more intense than against others, particularly
by those who avoid competitive activities or who are basically loners.
You can tap this self-competitive nature to improve
performance and achieve higher standards by codifying the “end results” - or
standards - for the functions performed by the employee. Even intangible jobs can be
clarified in the form of word pictures of the results obtained when the work is performed
properly.
Using the job description or a listing of functions
performed as a guide, employees are asked to write out the specific results of reactions
that tell them they have done well. Even if it takes time, the identification of
these word pictures of end results is basically a one-shot exercise. Once the
standards are established, they are permanent.
The motivation comes when employees keep a copy of the
targeted results at the workplace. Evidence accumulated over a long period of time
shows that employees strive to at least achieve the standards they have participated in
setting. Their competitive nature drives them to not only achieve the basic
standards, but to exceed them. The beauty of the process is that you need not stand
over an employee to review performance. The individual knows whether he or she has
achieved the goals instantaneously. A good analogy is the game of bowling, where a
player strives to exceed the score he or she achieved in the previous game.
In setting standards, some very specific benchmarks can be
established, including the time it takes for certain transactions or the number of
activities that can be performed in a specific period of time. Another plus is that,
when groups of employees work together to set the standards, the competitive nature of the
process tends to yield standards that are higher than those the individuals might have set
alone. In fact, you might find yourself reducing the standards because your
employees frequently establish them at levels higher that can reasonably be expected of
them.
The effort to establish standards has another
payout. The standards easily can be translated into a performance appraisal system
that is objective and permits self-scoring, thus reducing the generally negative
perceptions associated with the process of performance appraisals.
Conclusion
In a competitive environment, when bank profits are
continually under siege and bankers are forced to accomplish more with fewer resources,
you can ill afford to permit any employee to operate at a sub-par level, let alone your
long-term employees whose salaries are probably at the highest levels of the pay
scale. Using motivational concepts in a practical way will guarantee positive
results.
There is no exception to the phenomenon of the motivation
cycle. Without needs, we do not go into action. If an organism does not go
into action, it dies. Similarly if your employees or your bank lack the need to
improve their effort, they too will fail. It’s as simple as that.
