Only 1 in 4 employees strongly agree they feel connected to their culture and only 1 in 3 strongly agree that they belong at their organization. What’s more, the pandemic has only created more disenfranchisement between employees and their work. The millennial and Gen Z generations are notorious for only heightening the speed and frequency of job hopping.
Does it have to be this way? Not necessarily.
No one likes the volatility or uncertainty of changing jobs. People, millennials and Gen Z included, change jobs because they are not having their needs met, not because they like change and disruption.
At the end of the day, we need to make sure our staff members and employees are happy. Our employees or x-employees are leaving because they are not motivated to stay.
Quick exercise: on a piece of paper put a large T in the middle. On the left side, write down 5 things at your job that motivate you. On the right side write down 5 things that demotivate you.
Frederick Herzberg, father of motivation theory, would point out that your items on the de-motivate side (right) are often based on the job environment (the external things we can rarely change). However, the items on your motivator side (left) are based on job content and enrichment (things we can control or work with our employer to change).
Extrinsic motivation is done for the sake of some external outcome (pay, bonus, etc.). However, intrinsic motivation is defined as performing an action or behavior because you enjoy the activity itself.
As leaders, during this volatile uncertain and complex time in the workforce, we must focus on intrinsic motivation to keep and save our staff.
We work (especially those with salaries and careers) because of our intrinsic motivations. And, if we don’t work for those reasons, we are constantly de-motivated, dissatisfied and hopping from one job to another. However, we’d rather not. We’d rather be happy and well-paid (which really means well-valued) at our current job.
So, how can we weave intrinsic motivations into our workplace community and culture? It must be a long, complicated, and amorphous process, right?
No, again! We can actually break down intrinsic motivations into an easy to remember process that we can use every day!
Deborah Mackin and I designed this hybrid model of analysis when we wrote Survival of the Hive: 7 Leadership Lessons from a Beehive back in 2013.
In Survival of the Hive, Zync, our queen bee-in-waiting, is in the process of learning the leadership lessons when she asks, “But how do you build that passion and yearning for excellence in the bees?” The characters then work together to formulate a new model of engagement and motivation.
CAMP is an acronym that stands for the main components of the model. Think of each letter and description through the lens of “if this doesn’t exist or is in short supply, do my people tend to not be motivated.”
C stands for Competency: How well does the staff person know what they are doing in their various roles? This is all about how smart does one feel in their current job. If someone feels like they are smart, intelligent, well-equipped to handle their job they tend to be more motivated. In the book (and in real life), bees stay a while in the hive when they’re first born in order to learn and grow in a very incubated state. The bee then moves through various roles before it’s ever allowed out of the hive. Through its various roles (house bee, scout, forager) the bee is building its competency and confidence to accomplish the task appropriately.
- How to help your employees: Building the C in your employees can look like providing additional education opportunities, trips to conferences, cross-functional team membership, executive coaching and creating a development plan.
A stands for Autonomy: A staff person’s motivation is also based on their ability to make decisions. Equally, they have to know that you, the boss, trusts them to make those decisions. This is about gradual independence (think a teenager learning how to drive) in order to have the staff person feel like they have the freedom (and therefore motivation) to make educated decisions. In the hive each bee is free to roam over the hive, sealing any honey cap that hasn’t been sealed, sending an A-Alarm or R-Alarm if danger is present, and communicating directly with the Queen if needed. There is great autonomy with every bee in order for everyone to share the workload.
- How to help your employees: Building the A in your employees can look like providing them the freedom when to come into work or go to lunch, hybrid work models, facilitating a meeting, and understanding the Include Engage Empowerment model.
M stands for Meaningfulness.: Employees who are proud of their organizations are more likely to engage. Meaningfulness is two-fold. A motivated person must know the meaning they provide to the organization and equally, they must feel that their organization benefits the world around them. I remember suggesting to a banker once who was struggling to keep tellers around to have some of the tellers join their best mortgage loan officers when a new couple was going through the signing portion of their first house. The tellers need to understand that every little transaction leads up to big purchases and starting a life. They have a role in that new family’s purchase of a home – that’s meaningful! The bees must know what their roles are in the larger mission of the hive – its long-term survival. Likewise, the bees must also be aware of their own meaningfulness to the whole organization. “You matter. This wouldn’t work without your help,” is a great place for you to start with your staff.
- How to help your employees: Building the M in your employees can look like hosting more strategic retreats, mission/vision seminars, encouraging employees to sit on nonprofit boards outside of work, providing mentorship with senior leadership.
P stands for progress: People get energized by accomplishing things that move their job, organization, career, and life forward. Sometimes it may be little baby steps of progress (allowed to run a meeting, being named to a committee, a text from the boss on a Friday night saying, “Great job!”) and other times it may be a large like a title change or a promotion. Bees also get energized when they cap honey cells, start on a new ‘super’ or survive a winter.
- How to help your employees: Building the P in your employees can look like assisting them in goal setting, recognition of milestones and pausing to be mindful around wins and celebrations.
As leaders (whether that be of a team, group, department, or organization) we must put each of our staff members through this formula and decide where each one is and what they might need from us. A new employee or one given a new project needs a lot of competency building and feelings of meaningfulness/belonging, whereas an older employee may need more autonomy and a sense of progress.
You know your staff best:
- Where do you see an opportunity to connect with them and engage them more through the CAMP model?
- Think of two different levels of employees/staff that report to you, where do they stand in the CAMP model?
- What type of adaptive, empathetic coaching could you provide to lead your team to be more motivated?
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