A common theme in articles I have been reading this week is employer brand
and the creation of places where people want to work. These were perhaps best
represented by this article in HR Magazine. Yet I cannot help wonder why it all
appears so mystical and mysterious. Surely it is obvious?
After all, if we only have one life, it seems self-evident that we should
all want to make the most of it. And work is large part of life. Thus you don’t
need some academic writing in Harvard Business Review to tell you that, “People
want to do good work”, “in an organisation that makes a difference” and “in a
place that magnifies their strengths.” For anyone with an ounce of humanity
that should be a no-brainer!
If you think about it those three points are no more than a succinct summary
of the three intrinsic motivators that I have described before and which Daniel
Pink so eloquently expounds in his book, ‘Drive’: viz:- autonomy; mastery; and
purpose. In fact if you pause to reflect, you will likely recognise those as
being the driving force behind where you are today and where you aspire to be
in the future. Unless, of course, you have become one of what Henry David
Thoreau described as the mass of men who “lead lives of quiet desperation”
because you have come to consider work as a means to survive, with the hope of earning
a little extra so that you can afford to do the other things you really want to
do and acquire some of life's luxuries that you otherwise might never
have.
Hopefully, that isn’t you. Yet, could that be how you see your employees? Do
you see them simply as “resources” obliged to act out the role you have written
for them in their job description, doing whatever is necessary to achieve the
measures defined in their latest performance review?
If so, this could possibly be the underlying cause of the lack of employee
engagement and the reason that you are struggling for the productivity and
performance improvement that are the never-ending constant in your life. Even
if you don’t see them in that light it is quite possible that is their
perception of how you view them. If so their perception is the reality you have
to deal with.
Consequently you need to be considering what you can do to give them the
autonomy, mastery and purpose that will give them the work-life integrity and create a powerful employer brand that will
transform performance. And make life better for everyone – including you!