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TRAINING ON HR PRACTICES THAT YIELD THE BEST PERFORMANCE

Session 5: Employees Motivation, Retention,

and Building Positive Psychological Contract

Respicius Shumbusho Damian, BA, MA (Public Administration) Director, Senior Consultant, Researcher, and Trainer Shumbusho and Associates Consulting (T) Limited P.O. Box 4859, Dar es salaam Phone: Phone: +255736403442 Cell: +255 772 228 318 Mob: +255 786 428 318 E-mail: saconsultingtz@gmail.com

Consulting

Session 5: Learning Objectives

At the end of this session, participants must be able; To explain the meaning of motivation To understand the nature and essence of motivation To analyze factors that motivate employees at different stages of employment develop employees motivation strategies To develop techniques for maintaining positive psychological contract among employees To identify the key employees retention strategies As a long term Outcome: To formulate and implement an employees motivation and retention committee that will institute annual motivation studies and reviews.

A. Employees Motivation
What is motivation? Motivation is all about what people want about something? In employment, it is about what attracts an employee to join, to work, and to stay in a certain employment offers to prospective employees. It is an invisible enthusiasm of an employee to work best and become productive.

Motivation serves an important role in the growth, productivity, and sustaining efficiency in organizations. Motivation to join the organization (attracting the best out of the rest) Motivation to work for the organization (creating job morale)

When you think of employing, you also need to think of motivating the prospective employees at different stage of their employment. This is because motivation is an Endless Journey of aspiring and inspiring

Motivation to excel in employment (getting the best out of the people) Motivation to stay in an organization (retention)

The nature of motivation

Motivation is first and foremost individual phenomena. It is internal in the sense that only an individual knows what motivates him/her. Motivation is only cultivated, it is not planted. The best external stimuli only cultivate motivation of an individual and it comes out. Motivation is dynamic in the sense that what motivates someone today is not what motivates him/her tomorrow. The only concern of good HR practices is to seek how to combine motivating factors and keep employees motivated. However; motivation is a complex journey. It is characterized by unknown drivers on both the managers/employers and the subordinates/employees. The change in motivation drivers leads into unexpected shifts anywhere along the journey of motivation

Motivation and demotivation have self-regenerating behavior in organizations. But the relationship between the two is not reciprocal. Motivation gives birth to both motivation and demotivation, but demotivation gives birth to demotivation only.

Learn From the Fish of Motivation and Demotivation

Why is motivation important all the time?

Argument 1: Motivation creates the base for attracting the best candidates. Individuals start dreaming about what they will get from joining the organization as early as even before they have an opportunity to join the organization.
Arg 3: Motivation is a tool for creating employees self development. A motivated employee is anxious of his contribution to the organizations long term goals. E.g., a tutor at the university dreams of becoming an emeritus professor, a demotivated one dream of becoming a District Commissioner. A motivated lawyer seeks skills, knowledge, and competences to become an extraordinary advocate. Motivated constable dreams of becoming a superintendent one day, but a demotivated one may dream of becoming a lecturer.

Argument2: Motivation is associated with higher performance work behavior since it increases morale to work. Demotivation kills working morale and thus makes employees less productive. Well motivated teams are desired to augment productivity (efficiency) and profitability (effectiveness) in organizations.

Arg 4: Motivation is the best tool for retention of employees. This is because it creates and maintains a positive psychological contract (makes them see the bright future) among employees. Aug 5: Motivated employees provide superior customer service

Motivators and what motivates employees?

What motivated you to join WiLDAF? What motivated you to come here? What motivated you to marry your spouse? Are there times you think of separating with your spouse? Why are you still together? What motivated you to join the current employment? Is it the same that makes you stay there? What would make you happy with your work? The debate on what motivates people is as old as the age of the field of employment relations Up to this day, there is no answer, but what we have are multitudes of competing theoretical models and approaches.

Question: Which of the questions apply to you? Are they hard to answer? Use two minutes to discuss with your neighbor , for one question explain what s/he says

While the biggest question is what motivates employees, the next bigger is whether money and other material incentives motivates employees to love work, work hard, and stay within organizations. Some HR experts do not believe that money is a motivator. Instead, they believe that they are satisfiers (no pay no work-pay doesnt make people committed to work.

Some basic theoretical constructs

Douglas McGregor (1960), Theory X-Y

Some theoretical Constructs..

Abraham Maslow (1954): The Hierarchy of Needs Model (Motivation and Personality) The theory states that each human being is motivated by needs which are in born. These needs must be all satisfied, but they exist in hierarchical order that the fulfillment of one leads into the desire to fulfill the next. Even in organizations, when the organization does best and satisfies the first, second, the next need in the hierarchy becomes the immediate need, See the PYRAMID OF NEEDS in the next slide
Question for Discussion: From Maslows hierarchy of needs, what do we learn then?

Motivation Cont.
Daniel Rosenbloom (1997): Workers are always pretenders: When you pretend to pay themthey pretend to workMeaning that pay does not change an individuals attitude towards work
Read the Cases: Case 1: Majaliwa and Neema Case Study: When Majaliwa started his own consultancy he employed top people; people he'd worked with in the past who had shown commitment, flair and loyalty and who seemed to share his values. But a few months down the line one of his team members started to struggle. Neema was putting in the hours but without enthusiasm. Her confidence was dropping; she was unfocused and not bringing in enough new business. Majaliwa explained to Neema the seriousness of the situation. Without new business he would lose the company and that would mean her job. He showed her the books to illustrate his point. He again ran through her job description and the procedures she was expected to follow. He told her that he was sure she was up to the job but he really needed her to bring in the new business or they would all be out on their ear. Neema told Majaliwa that she understood. She was doing her best but she'd try harder. But a month later nothing had changed. After an initial burst of energy, Neema was back to her old ways

How to motivate people? This is a hard question. Not all good things go together, and in some situations even the experts of motivations may become successful at a time and unsuccessful at another.

Short Discussion: Question for general discussion: What do you learn from the case of Majaliwa? Assuming that you are Majaliwa, what would you do?

Cases continue

Sometimes, organizations find themselves in the situations that they are forced to combine forcing people to do their contractual assignments as longer as they are part of those organizations and their survival goals are being fulfilled by the organizations. Since human beings are by nature lovers of what is good for them and haters of what sounds bad for them Frederick Hertzberg, a grandfather of motivation theory suggested that the KITA technique is the best traditional motivation strategy.

The KITA Technique: He used the analogy of a dog. When the master wants his dog to move he either gives it a nudge from behind, in which case the dog moves because it doesn't have much choice, or he offers it a treat as an inducement, in which case it is not so much motivated by wanting to move as by wanting choc drops! KITA does the job (though arguably not sustainably) but it's hard work. It means every time you want the dog to move you have to kick it (metaphorically).

Question: How does the KITA technique work in your own organizational settings? Or, What do you learn from the KITA Strategy?

B. Developing Positive Psychological Contact

Was first used by Chris Argyris and Edgar Schein in 1960s. Refers to relationship between an employer and its employees, and specifically concerns mutual expectations of inputs (from employee) and rewards (from employer). The best definition is provided by Michael Armstrong (2006), .the employment relationship consists of a unique combination of beliefs held by an individual and his employer about what they expect of one another... It is called psychological because it exists intrinsically, it is not written anywhere on papers. The employee, from knowledge, experiences, and imaginations develops a set of expectations that have to be fulfilled in exchange with organizational objectives.
It is usually seen from the employees standpoint, but it also transcends to appreciated expectations of the employee from the ideal employer. This contract is always self-amending depending on internal and external forces/factors and changes.

Psychological Contract
The ICEBERG MODEL of psychological contract is the most familiar and elaborate. The model shows that there are internal force (the iceberg) and external forces that influence changes in the contract/expectations. In the beginning, the mutual expectations factors, which are known and recognized, and agreed by both sides, but as time goes on rises many external factors are not recognized and agreed by both sides. It is a dynamic and reciprocal deal-in the way that new expectations are added over time as perceptions about the employer's commitment evolve due to social and emotional aspects of the exchange.
Due to continuous rise in iceberg, the psychological contract develops some contradiction of terms which may result into development of negative psychological contract. Some examples of such terms on the two sides are S/he must be a thief, he thinks he knows much (on the side of employer) This organization doesnt belong to my mother (on the side of employee).

Psychological Contract Iceberg Model (popular)

Psychological Contract
What Comes with Negative Psychological Contract? Decline in employees job satisfaction, loss of organizational commitment, an employee may become disappointed, demotivated and resentful of authority in an organization, negative attitude towards work and workers, decline in performance, and generally drop-out .
Discussion Question: What factors may lead into perceived contract breach?

Factors that Affect Psychological Employees Performance: negative performance makes an organization performance poor, and thus employees dream that their future dreams may not be meat-always keep performance well managed Organizational performance: negative performance makes employees dream that their future dreams may not be meatalways keep performance well managed Employment alternatives: wherever there are chances to compare the organization with other similar organizations. Dont ever think that you are the only and one. The invention of a computer in Tanzania killed the typewriter market, but not the typist. Banks, CSOs, and MFIs created alternative for SUA graduates.

Factors that Affect Psychological Contract

Pre-Hire interaction: How do people know the organization out there before they come in the organization? Organizational Changes: be they good or bad. Implicitness of promises: be careful when you explain the future of the organization to employees, or the future of their own. If they are realistic-work out to make them true (e.g train them, develop them)

Maintaining Positive Psychological Contract

Guest (1996) Writes A positive psychological contract is worth taking seriously because it is strongly linked to higher commitment to the organization, higher employee satisfaction and better employment relations. Again this reinforces the benefits of pursuing a set of progressive HRM practices. Armstrong (2006), .. Define and clarify expectations during recruitment and induction programs Communicate and agree on expectations as part of the continuing dialogue that is implicit in good performance management practices. Adopt a policy of transparency on organizational policies and procedures and on managements proposals and decisions as they affect people. Generally treat people as stakeholders, relying on consensus and cooperation rather than control and coercion.

Communicate out all desired changes and encourage people to develop strategies on how to address those new changes Encourage learning culture, innovativeness, appreciate, acknowledge, and reward the best contributors to the positive direction of the organization.

C. Employees Retention
What is employee Retention? The ability of employees to retain its employees -(to avoid) employees leaving the organization for negative reasons. Bat what are the negative reasons? Why is retention Important?........... Loosing an employee is loss of investment (or asset): skills, experience, knowledge. Higher turnovers affect efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity When you cannot retain the best, you cannot get the best. Retention attracts best talents into organizations.

Why is retention Important? Though retention may imply paying more, it has a multiplier financial effect. Research show that the standard cost of replacing a staff member is anywhere $20,000 $50,000 (Tshs30,000,000- Tsh75,000,000) per employee (advertising costs, time to interview/orient to bring new employee up to level of departing employee).

Think ahead. Why should your organization retain the best talents?

Employees Retention Strategies

If you cant gent the best talents in, try not to let the worst out from your organization. One day, the worst may change into the best
Strategy 3: Encourage employees to invest in positive innovations and inventions, which are needed for the best performance and excellence of the organization Strategy 4: Make employees stakeholders and owners of the organization. Share the success and failures with them so that you can receive the best of their support for organizational growth and success. Strategy 5: Have in place a system of competitive incentives that will keep the best performers well motivated. Studies show that about 89% of organizations with higher turnovers are capable of retaining poor performers compared to good performers.

Strategy 1: Attract the best out of the rest. Research show that organizations which manage well are likely to retain competent employees compared to incompetent. Strategy 2: Keep employees informed of the long term and short term direction of the organization

Employees Retention Strategies

Strategy 6: Make sure employees know what's expected of them and how they can grow within your company. Strategy 7: Conduct stay interviews in addition to performing exit interviews to learn why employees are leaving, consider asking longer-tenured employees why they stay. Strategy 9: Recognize and value good work all the time and give due status to each position achieved in organization. Strategy 10: Encourage good relationship, teamwork, and participatory planning and decision making in the workplace

Strategy 8: Foster employees development and promote from within. Apart from being a motivation strategy, recognizing internally grown employees and promoting them helps to avoid perceived breach of psychological contract.

=END= Turnover is here to stay, but knowing why employees leave is a halfway towards making them stay.

THANK YOU
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