What Motivates Workers? An Exploration of How Employees Relate to Their Roles

BY Mary Pieper | November 16, 2023

For past generations of Americans, getting a job was usually just a means to an end. Although some people have always felt called to certain careers, for most individuals, the goal was simply to find work that allowed them to support themselves and their families. 

However, young people today “Are willing to trade off real income to join organizations where they feel aligned with the purpose or mission,” said Amy Wrzesniewski, the William and Jacalyn Egan Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Wrzesniewski was interviewed by Reynaldo Anderson, Graduate Director and Associate Professor of Africology and African American Studies at Temple University during From Day One’s recent Philadelphia conference. 

“Whether we're talking about neurosurgeons or laborers, and their relationships to how satisfied they are with their lives, work, and experiences of well-being, their sense of purpose and satisfaction is significantly better if they feel as though they would do what they're doing in the workplace anyway, even if they won the lottery.”

How to Attract and Retain Workers With a Calling

Although many companies are realizing the benefits of hiring people who are mission-driven, these employers often fail to support them, according to Wrzesniewski. 

Dr. Reynaldo Anderson of Temple University interviewed Wrzesniewski in the grand finale fireside chat. 

Once they join an organization, workers too often “Find that the calling for the work that they’re doing is eliminated over time by how the work is arranged in the organization, how the jobs are designed, how they’re being led and managed, and so on,” she said. 

A company’s leaders, managers, and supervisors should, instead, educate new employees and help them tap into what the organization is trying to accomplish and what their responsibilities are, says Wrzesniewski. 

The next step is to give employees as much autonomy as possible to carry out their responsibilities. However, companies must provide some guidance, Wrzesniewski added.

“I think everybody wants autonomy until you have too much,” she said. “And once you have too much, it’s paralyzing. And it’s terrifying. And it’s particularly paralyzing if you're new to the job, the workforce, or the organization, and you don’t know what you don’t know.”

The benefits of autonomy only come once new hires have a secure base of knowledge about how things are done within the organization, according to Wrzesniewski. She said one of her greatest concerns is that hybrid and remote work can prevent these employees from gaining that knowledge. 

“There’s so much information, understanding what it is that the organization is trying to make happen that gets lost when people are not working together,” Wrzesniewski said. She noted that loss contributes “to that sense of anxiety about not knowing what to do with the autonomy or how to get from A to B if you haven’t traveled that path many times previously with your colleagues, supervisors, or more senior teammates.”

Include Everyone To Boost Motivation

Although providing guidance and support to younger team members is crucial to keep them motivated, employers should also pay attention to their more experienced workers, says Wrzesniewski. She said these employees, who didn’t grow up with “a very deep understanding of all of the technological tools and bells and whistles” that their more junior colleagues had, are facing a lot of anxiety because of advancements such as artificial intelligence.

“The solution is to create partnerships, cross training, cross education, between these younger folks and these older folks, because they have such different skill sets and knowledge bases,” Wrzesniewski said. 

One of the best methods for getting team members from different backgrounds and fields to work together is to give them a common goal that they can only accomplish through cooperation, says Wrzesniewski. 

“But a way to amp up the motivation is to identify a common enemy that will wipe them all out,” she said. “That can be a competitor, a competitive environmental force that is not in the form of a person or a group that is threatening to all of them if they don’t band together to try to solve that problem. That can be enormously motivating and quite effective at erasing boundaries between people from different groups who we’re trying to bring together in service of a larger goal.”

Mary Pieper is a freelance reporter based in Mason City, Iowa.

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How Employers Are Boosting Internal Mobility and Career Development

Developing talent from within a company’s ranks simply makes a lot of sense. The benefits include greater productivity because employees are motivated to reach their goals, cost savings and time savings from the job search and onboarding processes, and increased employee satisfaction as workers feel they are valued.But as with all corporate practices, how a company puts an idea into practice makes a difference. At From Day One’s Manhattan conference, a panel of leaders spoke to the topic, “Creating Opportunity Within: How Employers Are Boosting Talent and Career Development,” sharing the thoughtful and effective ways their organizations are successfully promoting employees.The executive panel discussion featured five dynamic and creative business leaders who described their own career development and the ways they support and encourage the same for others.At Visa, the message that career development is a priority comes from the very top, says Melissa Fridman, head of people and global merchant sales & acquiring at Visa, North America. Ryan McInerney ascended to CEO in February 2023, after being prepared for this transition for two years, Fridman says. And among his first actions as chief executive was to promote others into leadership roles, which reinforced the message throughout the company that there was career mobility.Fridman described the company’s efforts as driven from the top down and intentional, and relayed how as a new CEO, McInerney blocked off a few days this year with his leadership team to discuss talent across the company. “And everybody knows that, so in advance all the businesses are spending time with their HR partners and their leadership teams talking about talent. That type of intention and knowing that we’re being deliberate about succession planning because of the robustness of those conversations, [leads to a lot of] follow up action.”But a bottom-up strategy also works. Penguin Random House adopted a growth charter a decade ago that “infiltrated through our personal development conversations and put the power back in the hands of the employee,” said Joanne Mallia-Barsati, vice president of global talent management and development. This growth and development methodology was designed to create two-way coaching conversations between a manager and employee to elicit “how people really think about their careers, how they own their careers and how they are equally responsible in thinking about their development at the company,” Mallia-Barsati said.Brent Vader, VP of HR at Verizon recognized that at a company with a large frontline employee population, internal mobility and career development might look different than at other organizations. “It was very difficult to figure out how to make the right connections, you don’t just want to post and pray and hope that someone recognizes my profile. There has to be something more deliberate,” said Vader.And so over the course of a few years, Verizon created a program called Journey Forward to map out how ambitious frontline workers can get ahead. “It encompasses everything that we’ve talked about, whether it's finding a network, making sure you have a sponsor, and understanding the right skills and experiences necessary to qualify you for that next role,” he said.The panelists spoke about the topic "Creating Opportunity Within: How Employers Are Boosting Talent and Career Development," in a session moderated by journalist Jeanhee Kim The point of the Journey Forward is to give employees a systematic approach for their development plan, as well as a plan for getting training and finding a mentor, to make it easier to scale to their next opportunity.This effort to develop talent from within is a shift from the more traditional practice of attracting new talent to companies. A tell-tale sign that a company is serious about career development is when its internal career page is as sophisticated and thoughtfully designed as its external one, said Marcus Strang, lead solutions engineer of recruitment marketing platform Clinch.“We’ve started to see a shift in the market. Companies are realizing that there’s a much better ROI in investing in internal resources like career portals, talent networks programs, where employees who already work for you can get excited about their next job with you, instead of thinking they have to leave in order to grow.”The cost-benefit analysis points in favor of career development. “If you invest so much in an employee, and then they go elsewhere, and they take all the learning and all of the investment that you've made and bring it to another company, that’s really a big-time loss,” said Rose Fass, founder and chair of leadership development consulting company FassForward.Additionally, retained employees attract talent to your company: “They’re really your best advertisement, aren’t they?” said Fass.Mallia-Barsati says Penguin’s global immersion program, which adds a global dimension to its career development efforts, has created new business opportunities as well. Spending time in a new location allows the employee to get to know the team, understand the business, build connections, and really understand the culture, she says. From this program, they’ve experienced numerous business achievements, “including new imprints created, book partnerships and acquisitions,” she said.Jeanhee Kim is an independent journalist who has worked for CoinDesk, Crain’s New York Business, Money magazine and Forbes Asia.

Jeanhee Kim | July 12, 2024

Promoting Well-Being While Boosting Performance in a Changing Workforce

Who does the work and how they do it is constantly evolving. “So, how do we make our work environments still attractive? How do we still develop our employees?” asks Kami Peterson, senior director, regional HR & employee Relations, U.S., Thomson Reuters. At From Day One’s Minneapolis conference, Peterson spoke on a panel titled “Boosting Productivity in a Changing Workplace–and Workforce.”“We need to think about not just the products in which we serve our customers, but also what type of product we are delivering internally. That’s programs, that’s processes,” Peterson told moderator Megan Thompson, Special Correspondent for PBS Newshour.Whether people are working remotely or hybrid, “There’s also the high degree of reactivity that we’re seeing that pervades the workforce,” said Andrew Deutscher, founder of Regenerate. “That’s partly stemming from the overwhelming workloads that we’re all contending with.” When employees feel their workload is too big, that diminishes productivity, says Deutscher.Workers are also dealing with a digital onslaught of emails and text messages throughout the day, which distracts them from more profound work. Other factors hampering productivity are diminished resources, meaning employees are forced to do more with less, and a lack of continuity due to high turnover rates, says Deutscher.How Company Culture Impacts ProductivityCommunication is the key to creating a culture that fosters productivity, says Chad Deshler, senior VP of U.S. sales for LifeSpeak Inc. “There are two common themes that I’ve seen with organizations," he said. “One is how you communicate, and the other is how you communicate.”In today’s workplace, some employees don’t feel their employers have a sense of loyalty toward them. “If you open up that door of communication and create a level of transparency, it goes a long way, sometimes even more than what a paycheck can do for somebody,” he said.Joel Geary,  vice president of human resources, global business units & medical scientific affairs at Beckman Coulter Diagnostics, says it’s crucial for an international company to have a common culture and way of doing things that crosses borders. Beckman Coulter Diagnostics has many offices around the world, so whether you are in Dubai, Japan, India, China, Mexico, or the United States, “everyone from manufacturing to R&D to sales uses a shared language rooted in our continuous improvement business systems, a guiding force of our culture” he said.The company uses its strong culture as a recruitment tool, Geary says. “It’s a big part of how we fulfill the employee experience and deliver results,” he said.Strategies for Increasing ProductivityCarita Hibben, vice president of human resources at C.H. Robinson, says the company’s new CEO is emphasizing a new operating framework based on lean methodology. She said this means “having the discipline to hold yourself accountable to the strategy you are trying to drive.”“What we’re seeing with that from a productivity perspective is a continuous process improvement mindset, as well as elimination of waste,” she said.The executive panelists spoke about "Boosting Productivity in a Changing Workplace–and Workforce"C.H. Robinson is also going to its locations and asking desk-level employees, ‘“Where do we have the pain points in the process that we’re trying to evaluate?’” Hibben said. The company uses AI to make processes more streamlined and efficient so employees can focus on giving customers the personal attention they need.“I would encourage you as an HR individual to partner with your business to say, ‘What does this mean for your teams? And how can we think about upskilling? Or how can we think about where we shift our resources to work on things that are a value add to the customer?’” she said.Thomson Reuters recently began having learning days several times a year where employees can sign up to learn from both internal and external speakers. These skills-based sessions are where team members “gather in our new world and help move the change, or the pace of change even faster,” Peterson said. “That’s definitely made an impact on performance.”Well-being and ProductivityEmployees aren’t as productive if they try to come back to work while they are still sick, and “we also know when we’re physically healthy around our sleep, or nutrition, or movement, we’re more focused and optimized in what we’re doing,” Deutscher said.Company wellness activities that have a high impact don’t have to come with a high cost, says Geary. For example, Beckman Coulter Diagnostics’ Chaska, Minnesota, facility does a 5K walk/run annually on a workday. The production line adjusts schedule so employees who want to participate, can participate, and it’s an annual highlight.“Don’t underestimate the value of a small group of people that are very passionate about something and want to make a difference with their teams and their organization,” said Geary, referring to the program that has been valued for over 12 years now.Physical health is only part of the equation. When people are emotionally and mentally healthy, they are better equipped to deal with setbacks and challenges, not only in their personal lives but also in the workplace, says Deutscher. “We’re more creative problem solvers when we have more energy to bear,” he said.Thomson Reuters now gives employees two mental health days per year. The entire company shuts down for those two days. “Everybody asks around, ‘What are you going to do during the mental health day?’ We’re trying to create that safe space, reintroducing that it’s OK, we all need a break. 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The Role of Leadership in Promoting Workplace Belonging

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Another focus of the program is pairing them with senior leadership who can truly advocate for them. From these classes, they’ve seen raises and promotions and from the advocacy program they’ve seen leadership become courageous as they speak up. “They have a greater understanding of some of the hindrances that people of color actually go through,” she added.Pay Attention to Age DiversityEvery age group can bring unique and helpful perspectives to organization, says Heather Tinsley-Fix, senior advisor of financial resilience at AARP.In a previous role, she was the youngest person on a big team of leadership, lawyers, and consultants looking to negotiate a big contract renewal. “I just felt so intimidated,” she said. “Most of them were men, and they just looked right past me.” One of her takeaways from that experience was to acknowledge everyone at the table, no matter their age or how they are different from everyone else. Representation is important, including age diversity. Many companies have websites with pictures of young people, which can make it hard for older people to feel like they belong. There is some messaging out there that certain ages are “too old” for companies to hire, when that is not only not true, it’s ageism. People of all ages want to contribute and be in a job they enjoy, and as Tinsley-Fix says, every age wants to keep learning and developing soft skills that help no matter the job you’re in. “Just paying attention to that, in addition to this sort of hard skills, can really diversify your hiring pool from a perspective of age,” she said.The Pillars of DEIPanelist Marie Carasco, vice president of organization development culture and diversity at Github, was one of very few black women enrolled during her doctoral degree program. It made an already challenging experience even tougher. Representation is a baseline in belonging, she says. Then came a full circle moment. She had the opportunity to teach at the ground level. “There were a number of students that came up to me so happy that I was there. And it made me feel that I was making a difference for them.” That’s why she works in the DEI space, and at GitHub, she is helping to shepherd work around organization development, culture and diversity. The company has four pillars of DEI, says Carasco, who supports each of them. One is understanding psychological contracts, or employee expectations. If those are broken, it’s hard for the person to reach their potential in the workplace. Second is psychological safety, because if they don’t feel safe they won’t take risks. Third, having those deliberate cross-company collaborations to foster an inclusive culture. And the fourth and final pillar is leveraging employee engagement and understanding, so they can take part in helping move DEI forward. “I know we have a lot of listening systems around employee engagement,” Carasco said. “But quite rarely do we even ask an employee, do you want to participate in service to drive this work?” If companies could have those conversations and bring them in, they can help drive the very programs that can help everyone.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.

Carrie Snider | July 01, 2024