People Not Paperclips. Kath Howard

in a business conference or lecture theatre. If nothing else, I’ve sought to retain my authentic voice throughout this book, which at times will slip into an informality. I’ve spent most of this book-writing process knee-deep in imposter syndrome, but I want to take this opportunity just to remind myself and you as a reader that any informality, storytelling or viewpoint-sharing should not be perceived as a lack of knowledge. It’s there, I promise you, but I chose to write a book that I hope you will be able to read on a commute to work, rather than assign to the dusty ‘textbook’ shelf. I’m a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, Senior HR Professional, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development and a Certified Executive Coach. However, the most important thing I bring to this book is my deep faith in humanity and the role that compassion can play in our experience of the workplace. We in HR can play a huge part in the future of work. We’re people, not paperclips.

       SECTION ONE

       SHAPING THE FUTURE OF HUMAN RESOURCES

       Chapter 1

      What really does motivate people?

       Introduction

      In this chapter, we will explore why people may not report being ‘happy’ or ‘engaged’ at work, and we will draw on thinking from behavioural science to determine what might actually motivate our people. We will discuss the concept of ‘meaning’ at work; what is it, and where can we all get some? And we’ll touch on the ever-debated topic of money as a motivator. The toolkit in this chapter is there to support you in exploring what motivates your people (your employees, or perhaps your own team, or further still, yourself). This is a hugely broad topic that is central to how we build people-focused cultures and put the human back into our HR plans.

       Drawing on behavioural science to respond to our ‘global epidemic’ of disengagement

      Apparently, we’re operating within a ‘global epidemic’ of workplace disengagement (Gallup, 2018). It all sounds pretty awful. Where do we go next? We’ve been investing in ‘employee engagement’ interventions for at least a couple of decades, and nothing much seems to have shifted. If we’re trying to create sustainable change in our workplaces, and I’m assuming that’s the end game, I’m still pondering to myself, ‘What is engagement?’ and ultimately, ‘How is it going to help us to achieve that?’ ‘Do we need to go back to the drawing board, and ultimately back to the evidence?’

      Employee engagement is nothing new. And so much of it is based on shaky evidence. If we’re pondering ‘where next?’, I wonder if we should look to a couple of fields that have existed all along. It could be that drawing on existing and refined tools and models from the world of occupational psychology could support how we ‘engage’ and motivate our people? There’s a difference between seeing employee engagement as a programme of interventions and seeing it as a long-term outcome built through a deep understanding of the needs and motivation of real people. To pretend we can create ‘business success’ on the basis of employee engagement interventions such as responding to a survey at a snapshot in time, or through free fruit and table tennis tables, is, quite frankly, bonkers. I would suggest we need to slow down, stop over-egging our interventions, and reflect on the evidence out there.

       So, what factors might create meaning in the workplace?

      Many years of ‘climate surveys’, providing a snapshot of employee feedback or ‘mood’, suggest that line managers, and probably also the HR teams, so often fail to understand what will retain and what will cause an employee to leave an organisation. Tony Schwartz (2016)⁴ suggests that satisfied people who report finding meaning in their work typically also report feeling ‘in charge’. Schwartz noted that satisfied people he observed achieved a measure of autonomy and discretion at work, and they used that autonomy and discretion to achieve a level of expertise. They learned new things, developing both as employees and as people, and they experienced what Schwartz termed ‘growth’.

      When asked what motivates them at work, employees reliably answer the same things, in generally the same order. When managers are asked what they think motivates employees, they too generally answer consistently, but just with completely different items.

      The key engagement factors, often cited by employees:

      1. Appreciation of work done – a simple thank you or recognition for their contribution. Our reaction to this in HR has been to build systems that can pop a thank you to people on email. I’m far from being a luddite, but I do find it interesting how we are just itching to depersonalise what could just be a simple human connection with a few simple words thrown in.

      2. Being involved and influencing how work is done – another one that makes perfect sense but is missing in many work environments. I’ve witnessed this lack of involvement many times and it is particularly prevalent in middle management, where managers may feel disconnected from strategy development or planning but be expected to ‘do’ what is set by others.

      3. The organisation extending care and loyalty – we can codify compassion into HR policies, but ultimately what really engages employees is their line managers and colleagues responding to their individual, personal and emotional needs when it really matters. Showing empathy and compassion is what makes us human, and is the basis of healthy human relationships, so why would we expect any of the factors that sit below to come before it?

      Key engagement factors, as very often envisaged by line managers and HR professionals:

      1. Pay – in the eyes of many organisations, engagement rests solely on a cost of living salary increase, with occasional ‘rewards’ for good behaviour.

      2. Job security – that old adage: ‘as long as we don’t sack them/make them redundant, they’re singing on their way to work.’ Unlikely.

      3. Promotion – the pathways to promotion are often unclear or misunderstood in organisations. It should be a relief to us all then that this isn’t the top motivator for employees.

      We often plan our engagement interventions in response to the three priorities above, and often therefore really miss the mark. What else motivates our employees?

       Opportunities to grow

      Whilst having ‘a great team’ around you might motivate you to work even harder, opportunities to grow and develop are often cited as being reasons for employees to remain in an organisation. According to a BambooHR survey of more than 1,000 workers, a lack of opportunities is the largest contributor to people starting to seek those opportunities elsewhere. This seems obvious, and the very reason of course that we invest in learning and development and talent interventions. However, how far do we tailor discussions to the individual? How far do we create meaningful career discussions that link where someone wants to be, to where they are now and consider motivating and potentially exciting opportunities to bridge that gap or to take the aspiration even further? Do our HR processes facilitate a meaningful conversation for each employee, or do they facilitate a tick box exercise to complete a process, or worse still simply to produce a rating to pop into a spreadsheet?

       Engaging, interesting work

      Employee engagement and job satisfaction are not the same thing. An employee can love his or her job, have fantastic pay and colleagues, whilst still dragging themselves into work every day to do a job they find painfully dull. I exaggerate, but we all know someone who stayed in a job far too long because they say they ‘really liked the people’… until that just wasn’t enough anymore. When we’re creating HR processes and ways of working that foster meaningful conversations for employees, we need to ensure these conversations explore how that person can