Have it Your Way

This week, Aston Villa Manager, Unai Emery, signed a well-deserved contract extension. Emery has done an unbelievable job transforming the fortunes of the club in a short space of time.

When he arrived 18 months ago, the club was near the bottom of the Premier League table. Currently, they are well placed to qualify for the Champions League in fourth position - an amazing turnaround.?Unsurprisingly other bigger football clubs have taken notice and now have Emery on their radar, but he chose to extend his contract with Villa.

I am an avid football watcher and probably spend too much time when I'm not recruiting thinking about lots of things to do with Aston Villa!?I can't say this for certain but I believe the main reason why Emery chose to stay at Villa, when he could go to other bigger clubs, can be summed up in one word: autonomy.?

The owners of Villa have made clear their whole project will be built around Emery.?They're aiming for the kind of dynasty and longevity that Sir Alex Ferguson built at Manchester United, who ran the club from top to bottom, with the final say on nearly everything.?

Emery could go to a bigger club like Bayern Munich, but would he have the same control and influence in a club that the owners at Villa have pledged to give him? No, he wouldn't.?He'd be a head coach dealing with first team affairs and NOT a manager with an overarching influence over all matters at the club and influence over his own destiny. So, on the face of it he's choosing a bigger and (maybe) more fulfilling role when he could easily join a bigger football club in a smaller role.??

In the world of recruiting, a very common complaint I hear from people when they aren't happy in their jobs is that there's a lack of autonomy, but why is autonomy so important??According to a study by PWC, employees with autonomy have stronger job performance, higher job satisfaction and greater commitment to a company. Nearly 20% of people would give up a pay raise for more control over how they work.

Working with autonomy gives people a sense of ownership and a level of buy-in they wouldn't otherwise have. Also, it helps to shine a light on talented employees, offering them scope to flourish and implement their own ideas, creating opportunity for innovation. Think of it this way, when people are free from the tyranny of a one-size-fits-all approach, they create their own and often better ways of doing things.

Employees who have real autonomy obviously tend to be far more loyal - as the recent case study with Mr Emery shows.?

• Open the feedback loop and ask your staff what they think about how they do their jobs? How could ways of working be improved? It might be better to start this anonymously to get the ball rolling if you've never done anything like this before.?
• Focus on results and deliverables rather than a rigid process. Usually there are lots of ways to skin a cat. Do you need to rigidly stick to just one??
• Consider management by exception. In other words, individuals in your team can earn the right to be left alone. If someone is delivering, perhaps be more hands-off with them, unless they fall below a certain standard.

Have a think about what this approach and the above techniques could do for your team's job satisfaction and the increased likelihood of retaining some of your key members of staff long-term.??

It might make your competitors' job a LOT harder the next time they want to poach your staff...