What Drives Employees? A look at how Purpose, Autonomy and Mastery at work leads to increased motivation and employee engagement - Part 3 of 4
By Chris Atkinson, HR Consultant, Organizational Strategy, CPS HR Consulting
In this series, we have been examining three factors at work that can lead to increased engagement and motivation: purpose, autonomy, and mastery. These factors, identified by Daniel Pink in his book Drive, also align with items in our nation-wide employee engagement survey. You can view the introductory post here and the second post where we look at purpose here. In today’s segment, we will examine Pink’s second factor, autonomy, which aligns with our survey item “I have a choice in deciding how I do my work”.
Autonomy over Task, Time, Technique, and Team
Pink talks about how autonomy is different from independence because autonomy emphasizes choice. Autonomy is part of human nature—we are wired with a desire for autonomous decision-making.
There are four essentials in creating a workplace that values autonomy. Autonomy over task, time, technique, and team.
Task: Employees want autonomy in deciding what to work on. For example, Google allows employees to devote up to one-fifth of their time to autonomous work. By any standard, it’s clear that they’ve had success with this strategy, in the form of numerous innovative products, including Google News, Gmail, and Google Translate.
Time: There are numerous studies that show people do better work when they are given autonomy in choosing when to work. Many organizations, including public sector employers, embrace the idea of flexible work schedules when feasible.
Technique: Employees want autonomy in choosing how they accomplish their work. Pink notes that in call centers where workers read from scripts, annual turnover in the 35% to 100% range is reported. In contrast, at Zappos.com, workers are given autonomy in determining the technique they use when providing customer service and they report minimal turnover and have a customer-service ranking that competes with Jaguar’s and Ritz-Carlton’s.
Team: When possible, allowing employees to select their work team will lead to higher levels of engagement. Pink points to Facebook which allows new employees to decide the team that they want to join.
It’s important to note that different individuals will place different levels of importance on these four aspects of autonomy.
Action Planning for Autonomy
So, what specific steps could your organization take to increase the sense of autonomy employees feel in their work? If your organization administered an employee engagement survey and identified work autonomy as an area for improvement it would be important to first speak with employees to gain a better understanding of the areas of autonomy that are important to them (i.e. task, time, technique, team, etc.). Depending on information gained from speaking with employees, there are a variety of actions that might be useful to increase employees’ perceptions of work autonomy. We typically recommend our clients consider the following actions:
Autonomy over Task, Time, Technique, and Team
Pink talks about how autonomy is different from independence because autonomy emphasizes choice. Autonomy is part of human nature—we are wired with a desire for autonomous decision-making.
There are four essentials in creating a workplace that values autonomy. Autonomy over task, time, technique, and team.
Task: Employees want autonomy in deciding what to work on. For example, Google allows employees to devote up to one-fifth of their time to autonomous work. By any standard, it’s clear that they’ve had success with this strategy, in the form of numerous innovative products, including Google News, Gmail, and Google Translate.
Time: There are numerous studies that show people do better work when they are given autonomy in choosing when to work. Many organizations, including public sector employers, embrace the idea of flexible work schedules when feasible.
Technique: Employees want autonomy in choosing how they accomplish their work. Pink notes that in call centers where workers read from scripts, annual turnover in the 35% to 100% range is reported. In contrast, at Zappos.com, workers are given autonomy in determining the technique they use when providing customer service and they report minimal turnover and have a customer-service ranking that competes with Jaguar’s and Ritz-Carlton’s.
Team: When possible, allowing employees to select their work team will lead to higher levels of engagement. Pink points to Facebook which allows new employees to decide the team that they want to join.
It’s important to note that different individuals will place different levels of importance on these four aspects of autonomy.
Action Planning for Autonomy
So, what specific steps could your organization take to increase the sense of autonomy employees feel in their work? If your organization administered an employee engagement survey and identified work autonomy as an area for improvement it would be important to first speak with employees to gain a better understanding of the areas of autonomy that are important to them (i.e. task, time, technique, team, etc.). Depending on information gained from speaking with employees, there are a variety of actions that might be useful to increase employees’ perceptions of work autonomy. We typically recommend our clients consider the following actions:
- Establish a regular agenda item at re-occurring staff meetings to discuss decisions about the way work is accomplished.
- Meet regularly with employees individually to discover ways they can be more involved with deciding how their work is accomplished.
- Have a brainstorming session with employees to discuss barriers to increasing their decision-making regarding how work is accomplished.
- Allow employees to experiment with a different work method that allows for more decision making. Then meet to discuss the pros and cons of the different work method.
- Develop policies allowing flexible work arrangements where they make sense for the employee and their job duties. Widely communicate these policies.
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ReplyDeleteWonderful blog! Employee engagement activities at the workplace can lead employees to be stress-free and energetic. The simple approach to engaging employees in fun activities and games. An employee engagement company in India, help various corporate and organizations to organize team-building, employee engagement and reward & recognition events.
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