Staff motivation
April 25, 2008
According to a new survey carried out by YouGov on behalf of Investors in People UK, 30% of workers are de-motivated in their current role, and the main reasons for this are lack of development and career progression opportunities. The research found that people who had been in their role for one to two years are most likely to want to leave. This is because their employer focussed all of their efforts on the induction period, where a lot of development and progression took place, but once the employee was settled in the role the focus on development tailed off. I was speaking to a colleague of mine the other day and he said that personal development had always been more important to him than his salary prospects, and I suspect that for a lot of other people this is also the case.
The research also highlighted the important link in making this happen – line managers. 28% of survey respondents to the survey who had a line manager felt unsupported by them. I can’t express enough the impact of the line manager’s actions and management style on the morale, motivation and job satisfaction of employees. No matter what great policies and procedures are in place, an employee will still be de-motivated if they do not feel that their manager takes an interest in their work and their future career path. Staff who do not feel this connection with their manager will be those who lose track of their goals, lack commitment through low motivation and will probably eventually leave after one or two years.
The UK supposedly has one of the lowest productivity rates in the world, even though we work longer hours than most other countries, so there has to be something in staff motivation levels. From the findings of this research, it looks like many companies have a lot more to do in terms of staff development and career planning; something that’s probably quite obvious if you think about it.
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