Employers are facing an unprecedented time. Jobs are plentiful, but workers aren’t biting. How can you run your company without engaged talent? What will the future hold? FindMojo can help you get a handle on the new normal with our employee motivation assessment.
The Source of Employee Engagement
You may have read about both sides of the return-to-the-office battle. On one side, workers claim they overwhelmingly want to continue to work from home, while many bosses are attempting to make people return to the office. Human resources departments say they are frustrated because they are seeing a large group of workers who want to remain home, another group that wants to return to the office, and a third group that wants the flexibility to work from either.
Flexibility is the keyword here. A recent Harvard Business Review article says that flexibility is now the most important consideration when people are looking for a new job. It’s not just important, it’s critical. Almost 90% of workers say they want “complete flexibility” for work hours and location. The days of the time clock and factory whistle are behind us. Workers simply will not put up with Big Brother watching their every move from 9 to 5.
How HR and managers handle this change can mean the difference between business success and failure.
How to Cope with Workplace Sea Changes
What’s telling is that according to the Harvard survey, 83% of workers believe that workplaces will adapt to meet their new flexibility demands, while only 66% of HR managers think that is possible. That’s a big gap. Who will fall into it?
It’s clear that as far as hybrid schedules go, this type of work arrangement can be challenging to companies’ budgets. Before the pandemic, if your organization had 1,000 employees in a single city, you likely leased appropriate-sized office space to house these people. If the group was dispersed throughout several cities, you may have had several leases for smaller spaces. You may own office equipment such as desks, chairs, copy machines, etc., or you may lease these as well. It’s all a significant business expense.
Over the years, we’ve seen many companies not renew their leases and send many of their employees home to work, saving themselves tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year — money they put into growing and improving their business.
At the same time, other organizations have steadfastly stuck to their in-office work model. Sometimes it depends on the type of work your company does; other times it depends on the company’s management style.
Each approach may be considered valid. But what happens when employees want to come into the office only part-time?
Is it About Money? Or Motivation?
Using the 1,000-employee model, let’s say 300 employees want to come into the office every day. Another 500 never want to come in and you can allow that. The last 200 want to come in, but not every day. With this model, you could lease office space for 400 employees — 300 with permanent workstations for the people who come in every day and 100 shared workstations for the other 200. Makes sense, right?
But what happens if all 200 come in on Monday and none come in on Tuesday? Where will you find space for them? Or what if, of the 200 employees who want to come in “sometimes,” 100 of them never, in fact, come in at all? It’s a waste of leased space.
But do you dare legislate a schedule to share the office space? What if you ask employees to sign up ahead of time for office space? Will that work, or will they resent committing to such a schedule? What if they get up on Tuesday and just don’t feel like going into the office even though they said they would? Can they just stay home and work, or can (should) you require them to come in?
You can see how mistakes in this realm could cause chaos at your company, as well as significant monetary losses.
The Answer: Employee Motivation Tests
What can help? Our scientists spent 10 years developing the Motivators Assessment tests to reveal nuances no other generic personality test is able to uncover. With our employee motivation assessment, you’ll discover exactly what makes each employee tick, leading to increased job satisfaction and higher employee productivity.
“Each employee” is the operative term here. Our employee motivation PhDs created these assessments not so that employers could discover what most employees want — our tests are designed to show what each employee wants. It’s an important difference, because you as a leader are not just aiming for the baseline; you are tailoring job descriptions to each employee. That does take more time. But it works, and it makes a huge difference in employee motivation.
Investing in employee motivation assessments for your workers will put you ahead of your competition. Employee engagement surveys are not just a fad. In 2021, discovering the keys to workplace motivation is a necessary survival skill.
The Secret to Workplace Motivation
Unfortunately, some leaders will continue to turn a deaf ear to their workers, taking the attitude that because it’s their company, they make the rules and everyone has to follow them. But that’s not capitalism, it’s authoritarianism. When your workers can leave and get a better deal somewhere else, you can be sure they will. Employee recognition, employee engagement, job satisfaction — these are all the building blocks of talent retention.
Determining how these principles work takes an infinite level of dedication and effort. If you don’t have the time, don’t worry — FindMojo has already done the work for you. We have developed employee motivation assessments that will let you quickly skip ahead to making the decisions — the right decisions — you need to achieve success in this new world.
Contact FindMojo today to learn more about how we can help your company adapt and survive.
