My Grandfather yearned for exactly the same things @ work as my son would

[Views expressed are my personal and do not represent those of the Organization to which I belong to]

There are certain things that are agnostic to the generation of the workforce. There are things which every generation has always looked forward to at workplace and, I guess, every generation would. There would be rarely an employee irrespective of age, nationality, gender or for that matter anything else who would not like to be respected, who would not like to feel valued, and who would not like to feel that she/ he is making an impact at the workplace. The form and manner in which these are provided or aspired for would change with time and generation of workforce but the basic human needs do not undergo a change. This is human and that has not changed and is very unlikely that it ever would. Simple as it may appear, it is probably the most difficult element in the contract of employment to provide and there are only handful of organizations which are able to do so consistently to a large mass of their employees.

There is umpteen research material available on what needs to be done to create a more committed workforce because that is where the challenge seems to lie. Various surveys show that the percentage of “committed” employees is by and large below the 50% mark in many organizations. To increase that proportion of employees by a few percentage points can make a world of difference, not just from a people perspective, but also for long term sustained business results point of view. Here are a few points that I mention below that may have an impact on employee commitment, not appearing in any particular order of importance. They are not based on any research and are merely hypothesis drawn from observation.

The challenge actually begins right from the hiring of talent. We often do not spend the time and effort required to select the talent and rely heavily on the credentials and educational qualifications and may be references in terms of selection. That could be highly misleading. Just because someone has done exceedingly well in Organization A, does in no way mean that she will do equally well in Organization B, because A and B are simply two different organizations with a different culture, no matter whether they belong to the same industry or not and no matter where their headquarters are situated in the same country or not. Just like no two individuals ever have exactly the same personalities even if they happen to be twins, no two organizations ever have exactly the same culture no matter what their origins may have been. Therefore, success in one organization is at best an indicator of success in another, but by no means can be a guarantee in any form. Though it may appear very obvious, but the emphasis on culture-fit is of paramount importance at the time of hiring, not just for the Organization to do well but equally importantly, for the individual to feel good and inspired in the organization. If there is a culture mismatch, the chances are that neither would the organization be delighted with the talent it has hired, nor would the individual be thrilled working in that environment for long. While skills can be acquired, culture –fit is far more difficult to attain- it is either there or it would never ever happen. If the mismatch is too stark, then the chances of, what is often referred to as, Organ rejection or infant mortality is very high and the employee is ejected or she/ he ejects herself or himself not much after joining. However, if the mismatch is not very stark (which is most likely in most of the progressive organizations with fairly robust hiring processes), but there are enough and more areas of mismatch, both the organization and the individual would “bleed” for a long time before the separation happens. During this period, it is very likely that the individual would feel not being valued, respected and not making a positive impact on the workplace or any combination of the above, while the organization may feel that the individual is not able to add value to the extent that is desired or expected at that level.  This generally leads to a vicious cycle with the employee losing commitment and that in turn further cements the views of the organization towards the employee, which further demotivates the employee, so on and so forth. While hiring errors can never be eliminated completely and there always will be those wrong hiring calls in every organization, the point is that if we spend adequate time in understanding the Company culture and then evaluate whether the potential hire fits that culture or not, the probability of hiring calls being wrong would be vastly diminished. We may perhaps need to reduce the emphasis on scrutinizing the skill element because barring rocket science, in all other fields that can be picked up fairly easily by the new hire, and increase our emphasis on checking for culture-fit.

The second element, which can make a world of difference to the employees across generations, is how much is the emphasis of the organization on professional as well as personal development of the employee. It is one thing to keep the relation between the employee and the organization at a very transactional level where the employee spends a certain amount of time to deliver certain output, and in return, the organization compensates (and therefore the term “compensation” used for salaries) for the time and effort expended by the employee; it is quite another when the organization actually shows genuine concern in building the skills and competencies for the long run in the employees. The effort (even more than the monetary aspect) that an organization invests in coaching & mentoring its employees to become better at what they do or prepare them for future does not ever get unnoticed by any employee. Unfortunately, neither does the absence of the same remain hidden from employees for long.

The third element I would highlight is how much time and effort is spent on appreciating employees for the efforts that they put in. This need not be formal and could well be (in fact it is often far more effective) an informal way of thanking and appreciating the efforts put in by an individual employee for going what is often referred to as the “above & beyond the usual call of duty”. Of course, this needs to be genuine and for a cause which truly meets the criteria of “above and beyond”. When one employee gets appreciated for that effort, it not only has a long lasting impact on that employee, but it creates an aspirational value for many others who would then get motivated to go much beyond their normal call of duty when faced with such situations. As the numbers increase, it creates a virtuous cycle where more and more employees start going well beyond what is expected of them in situations which are out of the ordinary. This, in turn, helps in creating a sense of “ownership’ amongst the employees as if they are working for their “own” organization and not for someone else or not merely as a salaried employee of an organization. While this sounds all too simple to implement, there are numerous organizations which struggle to create this culture of appreciation or some go so overboard in this that the value of appreciation itself is lost and it ceases to be aspirational.

The fourth element related to the previous one would be the manner and extent to which organizations celebrate wins including and involving the employees concerned. On the face of it, though this often appears to be a ripe element of cost pruning, however, it does have a lasting impact on the morale of the employees much after the celebrations are over. Howsoever small the win may be, nothing ever is small enough to be celebrated in an appropriate manner. It is in a manner organization’s way of applauding the efforts of a team and telling them that their efforts have been noticed and appreciated by the organization.

The fifth element I would mention is that how do the employees associate themselves with the greater mission/ vision/ goals of the organization. In other words, how do the employees feel that they are an “important” part of the organization making a real difference to the organization goals. No human being wants to be a mere cog in the wheel. Everyone wants to feel that she is building a cathedral rather than merely chiseling stones. How the organization is able to establish the link defines how much involved the individual employee feels towards the greater goals of the organization. The more the organization can cascade and link the larger goals into individual deliverables, the more the chances are that the individual would be able to link her performance to impacting the overall goals of the organization.

The sixth element would be how equitable the organization is in its distribution of rewards. Equitable does not in any way imply socialistic but whether the rewards are actually distributed in proportion to responsibility, accountability and the actual impact or are they kind of distributed more by hierarchy  or anything which is not transparent to the larger masses. While it is human for people to internalize (and hence overestimate) their own contribution to success and externalize (and hence justify) their responsibility in a failure, it nevertheless is important for organizations to not only be fair but, equally, be perceived to be fair in its distribution of rewards. If the rewards for a large scale success involving many are cornered by a select few individuals, the commitment towards future large scale projects diminish almost exponentially. Transparency in rewards and communication are two potent levers in the hands of the organization, which when used effectively, can really make a lot of difference.

Does the organization encourage its employees to speak and does it have what it takes to listen to them? If the organization believes in one-sided communication and the employees are expected to listen while the top management does all the speaking, the chances that there would be a large percentage of committed employees in that organization would be remote. The organizations which do a good job of encouraging and enabling their employees to speak their mind – be it a suggestion to improve things; be it a critique of something which should not be happening; be it providing customer’s feedback or for that matter anything where the organization can benefit- actually end up creating far more committed employees than those who do not. Every human being wants to have an opportunity to speak his/ her mind and wants someone, who can make a difference, to listen to her/ him. Whether things change immediately or at all is relatively secondary as compared to not getting an opportunity to voice one’s opinions or not getting the feeling of being listened to.

Last but by no means the least, do employees feel cared for? Do they believe that should an occasion arise when they are in dire need, the organization would not leave a stone unturned to help them in their hour of personal crisis? The answer is much less obvious than what it may seem at first glance, especially in today’s world. When employees feel cared for, their commitment is obviously significantly higher than when they feel that the organization they work for could leave them in the lurch in their hour of need. The design of the benefits program, more often than not, gives a very clear indication of the care that the organization shows for it employees. For example, the nature of hospitalization benefit, while no one ever hopes to use it, but it acts as a great safety net in the minds of employees. Or whether the organization provides assistance in school admissions or not. This may appear trivial but they do convey to the employees the extent to which the organization cares for its employees beyond the transactional nature of the relationship and that does have a reciprocal impact.