The Right Kind of Retention

Money is often seen as the most motivating factor for employee engagement, but it can lead to employees working for incentives instead of focusing on good work. Instead, employers must focus on intrinsic rewards -- meaningfulness, choice, competence and progress -- to keep employees engaged.

Given the cost of employee onboarding, HR and top management concern over retention is certainly justified.

However, those who fixate on retention itself may be missing the point - all retention is not necessarily equal. If, for example, employees remain primarily because they feel they have no other options or they're afraid of losing benefits, it's logical to assume they aren't giving their full talent and energy to the work.

Conversely, if they stay put because they enjoy or believe in their work - or are, in other words, engaged in their work - you may reasonably expect higher quality/productivit y. Engagement, therefore, should be a chief concern in any retention plan.

What fuels engagement? In our research for the Work Engagement profile - an instrument designed to measure the level of individual employee engagement and provide insight into how it can be improved - we found that, while salary, benefits and other extrinsic rewards are doubtless a factor, there is a more powerful indicator - intrinsic motivation.

When employees are intrinsically motivated, they derive energy and satisfaction from doing work that matters and doing it well, and tend to excel. What are some of the intrinsic rewards that fuel engagement? And how can organizations employ these in a way that, not only reduces turnover, but enables employees to connect meaningfully with their work? Those answers will allow companies to achieve the right kind of retention.

Defining Work Engagement

The engaged employee is committed to the purposes that underlie his or her job and self-manages in pursuit of accomplishment. Research shows that today's work requires considerably more judgment than in the past, including adapting to customer needs, solving problems and innovatively achieving organizational purposes.

However, the level of employee engagement is not keeping up with the growing need for it. The 2008 study The State of Employee Engagement by BlessingWhite found that only 29 percent of North American workers were fully engaged.

How can organizations fuel true engagement? Money - viewed by many as the end-all-and- be-all of motivators - does not have quite the impact on engagement you might expect. In fact, when employees are motivated only by incentive systems, they tend to care more about the rewards than doing good work, focus solely on rewarded activities, perform only "well enough" to get rewarded and often try to game the system.

Employees, it turns out, are not in it simply for the pay. Sure, they need the money, but once on the job, they also need to feel that their work makes a positive difference. They make ongoing judgments concerning their contributions which, when positive, produce strong, energizing intrinsic (psychological) rewards that fuel a high level of work engagement.

When the judgments are moderate, they become only somewhat engaged, putting in a "fair day's work." When the judgments are negative, in contrast, they become increasingly disengaged and cynical about work and begin to resent the effort they put into it.

In the Work Engagement Profile we identify four key intrinsic rewards based on the judgments employees make about their contributions:

1. Sense of Meaningfulness
You feel that you have an opportunity to accomplish something of real value that matters in the larger scheme of things. You feel that you are on a path that is worth your time and
energy, and have a strong sense of purpose and direction.

2. Sense of Choice
You feel free to choose how to accomplish your work - to use your best judgment to select work activities that make sense and perform them in ways that seem appropriate. So you feel an ownership of your work, believe in the approach you are taking and feel responsible for making it count.

3. Sense of Competence
You feel a sense of satisfaction, pride, or even artistry in how well you perform your work activities - that you are doing good, high-quality work.

4. Sense of Progress
You are encouraged and feel that your work is on track and moving you toward accomplishing your purpose. You see convincing signs that things are working out, giving you confidence in your choices and in the future.

Our research indicates that these intrinsic rewards have widespread and powerful effects, and are strong predictors of the kind of retention that truly benefits the organization. They are a healthy and sustainable source of employee motivation, leading to more positive - and fewer negative - feelings on the job, higher job satisfaction, fewer stress symptoms and a feeling of professional accomplishment.

Employees with high intrinsic reward levels show more work concentration and innovation, are rated as more effective, and become informal recruiters and marketers for their organization.

Creating a Culture of Engagement

You can create a culture of engagement by making it clear that your organization stands for quality, meaningful work. Keep people's attention focused on the elements of employee contribution, constantly asking:

a) What can we do that is meaningful?
b) What creative choices can we make to accomplish our purpose?
c) How can we improve our competency?
d) How can we ensure we are making progress toward our purpose?

Here are some additional guidelines for building a culture of engagement:

1. Engage the "middle."
It is tempting to divide your time between the "go-to," highly engaged employees and the disengaged ones who need the most oversight. But success depends largely on engaging the sizable group of "somewhat engaged" employees in the middle. Bringing these folks into the "highly engaged" category will create a strong majority of engaged people and a culture of engagement.

2. Regularly take stock of the four intrinsic rewards.
We designed the Work Engagement Profile for this purpose, but individual leaders can also get a rough sense of the level of each reward through ongoing conversations with their employees. Feedback from those in the engagement middle-ground is particularly useful. This ongoing assessment provides vital diagnostic information, revealing areas of reward that need attention.

3. Provide missing building blocks for any intrinsic rewards that are low.
Each intrinsic reward requires its own, unique enabling conditions, or "building blocks," which we identify as:

Meaningfulness:

a) A non-cynical climate: freedom to care deeply
b) Clearly identified passions: insight into what one cares deeply about
c) An exciting vision: a vivid picture of what can be accomplished
d) Relevant task purposes: a connection between one's work and the vision
e) Whole tasks: responsibility for an identifiable product or service

Choice:

a) Delegated authority: the right to make decisions
b) Trust: confidence in an individual's self-management
c) Security: no fear of punishment for experimenting or honest mistakes
d) A clear purpose: an understanding of what one is trying to accomplish
e) Information: access to relevant facts and sources

Competence:

a) Knowledge: an adequate store of insights from education and experience
b) Positive feedback: information on what is working
c) Skill recognition: due credit for one's successes
d) Challenge: demanding tasks that fit one's abilities
e) High, non-comparative standards: demanding standards that don't force rankings

Progress:

a) A collaborative climate: co-workers who help each other succeed
b) Milestones: reference points to mark stages of accomplishment
c) Celebrations: occasions to share enjoyment of milestones
d) Access to customers: interactions with the beneficiaries of one's work
e) Measurement of improvement: a way to see if performance gets better

4. Share credible evidence of meaningfulness, choice, competence and progress.
Engaging leaders keep their people energized through such practices as sharing appreciative customer-feedback customers, reminding people how much they've accomplished, telling stories about innovative solutions, drawing attention to special accomplishments and celebrating important milestones.

5. Build intrinsic motivation and engagement into leadership training programs.
Finally, provide supervisors and managers with an understanding of the importance of intrinsic rewards and worker engagement.

Managers and professionals, though quick to recognize the importance of these rewards in their own engagement, are often surprised to realize that they are equally important to employees at all levels. Give them the tools to engage their direct reports, so that they can help you achieve the right kind of retention for your organization.

-Kenneth W. Thomas

[About the Author: Ken Thomas is perhaps best known as co-author of the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, which has sold over 6 million copies. His new instrument, the Work Engagement Profile (with Walter Tymon, Villanova University), published by CCP, Inc., provides a means of gauging the level of intrinsic motivation within an organization or individual, and tools for using the four intrinsic rewards to increase work engagement. Ken is also author of Intrinsic Motivation at Work: What Really Drives Employee Engagement, co-published by Berrett-Koehler and ASTD.]



Compiled by ; Hemant Gade
Hemant@JobsEnsure.com
http://www.jobsensure.com