Mention rewards and many in business jump into salaries, payroll or bonuses, because they are usually attached or translated into some monetary exchange.
However, rewards go far beyond the dollars and cents in business. The underlying and often ignored aspect of rewards is motivation.
Understanding human motivation is not new. In the early 1900s, a German philosopher and psychologist Eduard Spranger published a book in German entitled “Lebensformem.” This book was translated into English in 1928 as “Types of Men: The Psychology and Ethics of Personality.” From his research, Spranger identified six core attitudes or values he found in every person. Spranger believed these six values created motivation.
Spranger’s original six core attitudes were:
*Aesthetic – form and function
*Economic – usefulness
*Political – power and control
*Social – people
*Religious – unity
*Theoretical – truth discovery
Later in the 1970s two other psychologists by the names of Deci and Ryan undertook both quantitative and qualitative research to explore human motivation. They discovered all people share these three areas:
*Mastery
*Autonomy (choices)
*Purpose as it relates to people
The work of Deci and Ryan speaks much more to intrinsic motivation than extrinsic motivation. When people have the “want to” do something, they will go after “the know to.”
Of course, some small business owners and sales managers still believe in the carrot and the stick motivation. Incentivize people with potential rewards to achieve the desired results and berate or threaten them for failure to achieve the desired results.
One of my clients required a day of cleaning. As each employee had a different work station, he did not want to unilaterally clean each station and potentially disrupt ongoing production work.
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The client asked his employees to give up a Saturday morning to clean their work stations and the facility. He offered to buy all employees lunch afterward. Per my suggestion he bought some gas cards and hid them around the office. When his employees found the gas cards, they were surprised.
My client told his employees he wanted them to have some fun in doing a not so fun job on their morning off. One noticeable result was the cleaning of the facility went much quicker because the employees were now motivated.
At lunch everyone commented on how much fun they had cleaning up their workspaces as well as the facility. They also appreciated the gas cards and thanked him for his support.
Yes this client did use extrinsic motivation, but also intrinsic motivation. He asked by giving a choice to his employees to participate. Also, he recognized the mastery of each employee respective to the employee’s workstation. Finally, through hiding of gas cards to buying lunch, he related to his employees and they related to him in a very positive way.
Possibly not understanding human motivation may partially explain why only 25 percent to 33 percent of all employees are actively engaged according to Gallup’s annual poll on workforce engagement. When 35 percent to 50 percent are just engaged and 25 percent to 33 percent are actively disengaged, maybe it is time to better understand human motivation and align your rewards to that motivation.
Leanne Hoagland-Smith is an author, speaker and executive coach. Her weekly column explores issues that impact the bottom line of firms with fewer than 100 employees. She can be reached at 219-508-2859.