Empower staff to achieve success

With so many interesting challenges to resolve utilising analytical tools our forefathers could only dream of, have organisational personnel lost interest in what they do? In an age with forensic specialisation of skills, society should be re-entering a new Victorian era of invention and innovation, but instead that specialisation is being misdirected and wasted. Today there are armies of optimum farmers working alongside neighbours they have never met and whose language they often do not share. Farmville (a gaming application) on Facebook (a social website) has 96 million regular daily users who, working through forums, have reviewed, trialled and made an art form of virtual effort.

Partial explanation is due to changing individual motivational factors. Maslow's pyramid of hierarchical needs demonstrates as people achieve basic needs they begin to strive towards self-actualisation; what a man can be, he must be. Consequently, traditional rewards are becoming staid, no longer reflecting newly sought intrinsic rewards.

Requirement for extrinsic rewards remains but it has become more difficult to harness as a tool to attract and retain staff. Choosing between a stodgy IT firm which formalises roles and responsibilities to within an inch of ones existence and, say a Google, that deliberately allows its employees to play with their own concepts (for a defined) amount of their time, it is not difficult to gauge why certain companies are better at attracting the best people.

Personnel today are gifted much autonomy, delegated tasks and expected to manage themselves while using their accumulated experience to successfully complete their tasks. This innovation and improvisation in dealing with and resolving issues for their customers are the measure of the value add of today's employee.

Driving this move from an extrinsic to an intrinsic reward paradigm has been the relentless automation of tasks allowing greater empowerment of employees within organisations. Educational institutions have been preparing future workforces for this shift for a couple of generations. A tipping point has probably already been reached threatening to leave traditional reward models behind.

Extrinsic rewards are in the gift of another and not directly linked to completion of tasks. Intrinsic rewards come from within the individual, psychological benefits from engaging in work that is personally meaningful and for whom achievement comes from positive results.

Self management frightens many people. It does not need to be and the following may help form a useful structure within which to frame taken upon responsibility.

- Make a decision and embrace what it is you wish to achieve

- Decide how best to deliver that target

- Perform to the best of your ability

- Work effectively towards your goal

Every time people assesses themselves within this framework, they are deciding for themselves about the usefulness of what they do, what measure of control they have in doing their tasks, how competent they are and whether they are on track to complete an assignment as originally planned. Pronouncing to oneself on these four metrics is crucial in measuring the value of the work completed.

Organisations can develop scales to measure individual satisfaction, building a personality profiles that best fit given degrees of independence. Morale can be similarly measured or used in performance reviews gauging the performance of both employer and employee.

One would expect high scorers to be high achievers, stay longer and progress within the organisation. Mid-ranging results might indicate uncertainty of organisational purpose while still enjoying their work. Bottom scorers may have lost motivation and become cynical for a variety of reasons and are unlikely to remain. Organisation benefits will accrue where disproportionate numbers of high achievers exist. Referral recruitment will attract similarly positive people while customers will feel more engaged with. The potential for individuals burning out will fall; stress should likewise remain low. This is part of the nirvana win-win model that senior management seeks. Performance increases without the traditional costs of effort generation, timely given today's pressures.

A relatively new debate, most perceive others around them to be mainly driven by monetary rewards; hence this self fulfilling prophecy is still the default approach in the majority of organisations today.

Starting today, think about how to change the culture of your organisation so it contains a high content of intrinsically driven employees. Communicate this as a progressive step enhancing organisational professionalism; how its customers perceive it, its competitors strive to be them and how the business is a leader in its fields of operations. HR is central to driving the communication of the message. Executives will require training in recognising intrinsic returns and how to nurture it in others. Many courses make the mistake of not reminding attendees that they too must embrace these new techniques if they wish to achieve the buy-in of their teams. Focus on the four questions from earlier to help self-doubters, approaching from the perspective of empowerment and choice.

Intrinsic measurement scale mid-rangers merit close attention. Converting doubters begins a journey towards full engagement benefiting all stakeholders in that person's zone of influence. You will need a method to calculate these values. Create one.

Identify component elements that make up the process of self management, eg, for ability, feedback and aid in the following areas: Skill enhancement, interesting challenges and honest feedback. Prioritise these, tier ability in each one and support the individuals' journey to mastering each. This is not just an individual experience, it can be jointly engaged in by teams seeking to overcome challenges. Allow individuals who identify issues to bring together expertise to attempt to formulate and action solutions. Disengagement from the real world is happening and it is just not individuals who are leaving, even governments are at it. Sweden recently announced the closure of three of its European embassies while it set up a virtual embassy in the on-line game Second Life. It is not necessary to turn to games as a way to fulfil the need to achieve, but instead approach work as a competitive environment with a want to compete at the highest levels and win.

- The author is a senior financial consultant based in Dubai