By Omagbitse Barrow
Studies show a strong relationship between the level of employee motivation and the productivity and results that organizations achieve (Nohria et al. 2008; Paais and Pattiruhu, 2020; and Riyanto et al. 2022). I recall that as a Regional Manager responsible for a team of over 200 sales representatives and agents in the mid 2000s, we always achieved better sales in the week that followed our biweekly sales meetings than in the week where we did not meet.
At that time, I didn’t realize it, but now I do, that the sales meetings focused on three very important aspects of employee engagement and motivation: 1) autonomy: where we challenged the sales professionals to brainstorm strategies to improve their sales; 2) competence: where we facilitated knowledge sharing and peer learning on our products and client needs; and 3) relatedness: where we built valuable bonds and relationships with each other through team building activities.
These three determinants of employee motivation and engagement come from the Self Determination Theory (SDT) postulated by Deci & Ryan (1985). According to this theory, employees have three basic psychological needs as follows: 1) autonomy, which refers to the need to feel in control of one’s actions; 2) competence, which is the need to express and exercise your capabilities; and 3) relatedness, which is the need to feel connected to others. When these needs are satisfied, employees feel a greater sense of well-being and are more likely to engage in positive behaviours that lead to higher levels of productivity and results.
This means that forward-thinking organizations and leaders are very concerned about the extent to which these psychological needs are being satisfied in their employees. That’s why such leaders and organizations invest in measuring employee engagement using an employee pulse check from time to time. Over the years we have deployed employee pulse checks based on SDT and these three psychological needs to help organizations gauge the level of motivation of their employees, identify gaps that exist, and then develop and implement strategies to address these gaps. The insights and perspectives that you can glean from a well-administered and analyzed pulse check will provide the basis for evidence-based interventions to bolster productivity in your organization.
So, rather than just implement interventions to address employee motivation without the right data to back you up, or just ignore the motivation of your employees and pray that it would resolve itself, we encourage organizations to make an investment in deploying employee pulse checks.
Are you a forward-thinking leader who would like to unlock the motivation of your employees and achieve higher levels of productivity? Then please, feel free to explore our Employee Pulse Check solution from Learning Impact. You may reach out to our team of organizational effectiveness consultants on +234 805 195 3276 or via email at info@learningimpactmodel.com to learn more about how we can support you with measuring the motivation and bolstering the productivity of your employees and teams.
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