The Reality of Business

Motivation Matters: Creating a Culture that Retains and Inspires

• Bob Morrell and Jeremy Blake • Season 6 • Episode 8

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What truly makes employees want to stay, grow, and give their best?

In this insightful episode, Bob and Jeremy discuss the complex world of employee motivation and retention, blending historical perspective with actionable strategies to help you rethink workplace satisfaction.

Starting with Henry Ford’s revolutionary workweek reforms, their discussion moves through decades of evolving workplace culture, reaching today’s pressing need for flexibility and autonomy. Bob and Jeremy explore Gallup’s latest findings on why employees choose to leave – from salary concerns to management styles – and share practical ways to address these challenges, transforming them into opportunities for engagement and retention.

With insights from renowned models like Herzberg’s two-factor theory and Hackman & Oldham’s Job Characteristic Model, the conversation highlights how purpose, personal growth, and a supportive culture contribute to sustained motivation. Relatable sales scenarios illustrate why a balance of intrinsic motivators (like achievement) and extrinsic rewards (like bonuses) is crucial for long-term commitment. 

You’ll also uncover the impact of flexibility, feedback, and authentic leadership in building connections with today’s diverse workforce, especially for Gen Z and millennials who prioritise value alignment. Packed with real-world examples and effective tips, this episode equips you to create a workplace where employees feel appreciated, motivated, and ready to excel.

Tune in to discover how you can foster a culture that not only retains talent but inspires people to give their best every day.

For more info, free resources, useful content & our blog posts, please visit realitytraining.com.

Reality Training - Selling Certainty

Speaker 1:

well, thanks for coming in, bob. It's lovely I get a. I suppose the only time I get to have a one-to-one with absolutely everybody. Um, well, as you know, every year I like to start with the same question. Um, and I've looked at your well file, digital file these days, but 17 years years yeah thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you first of all. Thank you, it's all right. So, as you know or may not know, but we'll say we, we run various things, we try to do various things to motivate and retain you, and it's just about you, bob. So if you think of all the different things that have happened over the last year, what do you think is the number one thing that keeps you motivated and staying with gordon and sons?

Speaker 3:

um, I suppose it's two things really. Um, my commute now is much easier, so that's quite handy, and I suppose maybe I shouldn't say this. I suppose the money is okay. So those two things, yeah, they tick the boxes really.

Speaker 1:

But hang on. What about the without me naming it? Do you remember the thing we launched in February?

Speaker 3:

Oh, yeah, yeah, that was quite good, yeah, I mean. Yeah, I mean all that stuff is all very well, but really you know, the fact that I get paid reasonably well and it's it's an easy commute makes it all you know fairly okay. Right.

Speaker 1:

Well, well, well, thanks. So welcome to another episode of the Reality of Business. How are you, Bobby boy? I'm very well indeed. Sir, how are you? Yeah, I'm good. This has been an interesting topic and I sort of realised that the headline how to motivate and retain employees, employees could lead you down a thousand avenues, but I've tried to sort of whenever I found something to say hang on, is that to do with motivating and retaining?

Speaker 3:

so it's quite hard as you'll see, it is hard I think about as a question how to motivate and retain employees. It's almost the pivotal question for any manager. Actually, how do you motivate your people and make sure they stay with you? And if you can get those two things right, you've probably got a reasonable business. But I'm sure you're about to convey to us it's not perhaps as easy as people might think.

Speaker 1:

Well, let's start with a little guessing game. So, gallup, quite a well thought of polling research organization.

Speaker 3:

Oh, very well thought of, I would say.

Speaker 1:

I'd go further, dr Gallup, of course. So they ran a survey coming towards the end of 2020.

Speaker 1:

Obviously a few things going on in the world or beginning to go on in the world 2020. Obviously, a few things going on in the world or beginning to go on in the world. Yeah, and it was called employee burnout causes and cures and it was a very large sample. Okay, what percentage of employees sometimes experience burnout on the job and we could argue by burnout they have lost some of their mojo, they're not motivated and they're almost at breaking point.

Speaker 3:

What percentage of employees sometimes experience burnout or have experienced it, is it sometimes, or how?

Speaker 1:

no, no, it's. They've definitely had it once twice okay, okay it's not a one-off. It's something that they might have for a period of time and it goes away again.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I cannot imagine the percentage, but I would put it quite high.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is, it's 76% Wow.

Speaker 3:

Okay, so three quarters of employees are sometimes experienced burnout.

Speaker 1:

Let's come to the second question. They asked what percentage of those same people are feeling it very regularly. We must be over 50. No, it's 28, so okay, okay, coming up to a third of people are going to work, and regularly going into a burnout state.

Speaker 1:

okay, so we'll also start on a retention, little sort of thing. Immediately, just off the top of your head, there are sort of six reasons why an employee leaves. What do you reckon they might be? You can call out any of them. So it's going to be money, yep good. Inadequate salary or hourly rate because of the HR demons, the manager not getting on with the manager eight because of the hr demons. Yeah, the manager not getting on with the manager. Yes, yes, we'll put that into the unhappy with management per se.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely so you've got four to go. Keep it going then. Um, it's going to be god, I mean, it's real go back to the first stat I gave you. Oh, okay, so they're. They're feeling burnt out and want to change. Overworked, yeah, overworked. Overworked, unsupported Change as good as arrest. So they go for that Very good, yep.

Speaker 1:

There's three more. Lack of development. Perfect, well done. You're doing great, really good. Little to no room, yep, yep. Other well companies close whether they are approached or not. There are more compelling job opportunities, so I must leave, okay, okay. So there's one more, which is, if you like, a lot of what coaching tries to address well, some degree of self-motivation in some form.

Speaker 3:

50, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Work-life balance oh okay, fine in our little sketch, you and, uh, your imaginary partner, barbara, or whoever had moved nearer to you at gordon and son. Yeah, you, you quite like the fact your commute was reduced and you thought you paid enough. You had two working for you, but arguably you weren't that fussed about the others well, some of those things all feed in anyway.

Speaker 3:

I mean, if your work-life balance isn't right, you're going to be burnt out and demotivated, yeah, and if your money isn't great, that's going to make. I mean, all of these things are going to compound, yeah, I think it'd be very rare for you to go. The only reason I'm leaving is because of this one thing yeah, it's going to be a combination of things which will get you going in the right direction so I suppose the thing to talk about straight away is the two things are very closely linked.

Speaker 1:

So if you're motivated at work, it's going to possibly keep you there. So motivation and retention are linked. However, what my research shows up is sometimes companies don't necessarily do anything. So what's been interesting? I've talked to someone working in a very well-known consultancy. I've talked to someone who's done very interesting work in the NHS. I've talked to Danny, friend of the podcast, who's a sales director at Curious Brewery and making lovely beer, and I've talked to a friend with a very fast-growing accountancy business. So I've sort of had some in-depth personal stuff coming back. What's interesting is sometimes these people don't necessarily think the company's doing it, so the company may not actually be doing anything. So I thought I'd kick off and try to get you to remember a famous Dostoevsky quote that we can apply to businesses. So what did he say about happy and unhappy families?

Speaker 1:

I really, I mean whilst I have read you, you know this quote you we and I've we've talked about it before so maybe I have, but I've read, I haven't got it in front of me, but I'm going to paraphrase it, which is something like all happy families are alike.

Speaker 1:

All unhappy families are unhappy in their own very unique way okay, fair enough, that's very true, yeah yeah, and what I've found is that in my general research this is sort of the holistic overarching thing is the companies that have happy people. They all say similar things of why they're happy, and so what kind of things before we get into some juicy, sort of deeper research what kind of things do you think might be off the bat, motivating and the reasons why you stay as a human? And we've covered some of the stuff. But now think broader. Think somebody who wasn't interested in research and you just said, hey, mate, what do you like about your work'd you stay?

Speaker 3:

it's so difficult because different people are motivated by different things, and if you are the type of person who is motivated by relatively mundane tasks and these people do exist, yeah, yeah then if you're well paid for that and you know there's a nice culture around you, then you're perfectly happy. Right go back there's a two ifs, aren't they?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so what is?

Speaker 3:

that well paid. But then then the culture is something else. Well, this is something you and I talked a bit about recently and I know it's a hot topic of yours. Culture, I think, is a very broad and difficult subject to define, isn't it? For a large group of individuals. And in fact, I remember one of our clients years ago saying he thought the optimum number for any type of company of people was 147. He'd worked it out and thought that beyond that it gets a bit ungainly and a bit big, and below that it's very much a small business. But 147, he thought, was an excellent size for a good size business.

Speaker 1:

There was something about it being a maximum snooker break as well. I think.

Speaker 3:

Well, I think that was just a coincidence, but then there's an idea that 147 you can create probably a pretty good positive culture Beyond that. You then have to start, you know, taking into account so many different types that it becomes almost impossible.

Speaker 1:

Let me simplify it. Let me do the de Bono technique of eyes of a child. In fact, let's go to children for a minute as parents all over the country, if you are a parent and your child goes to school, they're either happy at school or they're not happy at school. What's the fundamental thing? Let's talk about children, because it's the same that makes a kid happy at school.

Speaker 3:

Friends, that's it right, yeah, and and also decent teachers yes, but primarily they're not being bullied.

Speaker 1:

There's enough nice people around them, yeah, sure. So that is what my research shows is the people who really get asked this question of what motivates you. They simply say the people there's enough good eggs about. I'm stimulated by the people. I enjoy the way they think they fundamentally point out that the people are all right. This is beyond money.

Speaker 3:

And actually, if you think about the number of times you talk to people about your career and places you've worked and people say things like I would love to have a company with all of the great people I've worked with in that company. So all those people that I've got on with over the years who were good, bring them into an organization together and it would be unbeatable. Yeah, but then when you actually think about that, who's to say that that particular group of people? Would actually get on.

Speaker 1:

You don't know that, but there we are and what's interesting about the research I've done is that the way the company does that, their contribution primarily, is very good recruitment. We get the right fit so that the bunch of people here who are actually quite nice and not bar stewards, we get more people to join them who are like-minded souls. So that's tough because recruitment's tough.

Speaker 3:

Really tough. I think it must be the toughest it's ever been at the moment.

Speaker 1:

Well, the consultant I talked to international, very well thought of consultancy because some are not, but this one is consistently is thought of as well, really careful over who they bring in because they want to be coming in for some time. And he also said he doesn't hop skip, skip jump because of money, because even though he might earn more with another consultancy, the people are stimulating, the work is good and that's enough to retain and motivate Because once your money is okay, even in that jokey sketch at the beginning, you might get another few grand. But when you're a bit older and this chap is you know mid-50s, does it matter? Chap is you know mid-50s, does it matter? The extra grand here and there does it matter, you know?

Speaker 3:

well, that's similar to a chap who was very, very um present on linkedin a few years ago who ran a I think it was seattle or sanfrancisco based dot com I don't know what the kind of company it was, but it was successful and he was growing and employing people. And he realized that to employ people on entry level salaries was going to increase his staff turnover, which was going to increase his cost, which was going to be a pain, and so he made the executive decision that every single person in the company would be on a minimum of 75,000. Now that's a really bold thing to do, an expensive thing to do, but of course, it meant that his staff turnover was 0% Because they were all amply paid for what they were doing and they committed and they were successful as a result. Now, that's incredibly enlightened. When you think about it, that's a really, really bold thing to do. But also, if you're serious about growth, it's a statement of intent, isn't?

Speaker 1:

it An interesting experiment that Daniel Pink's running at the moment with the Washington Post where he says send in what you think would be a much better world. And people are sending things like double the pay of teachers, reduce the pay of bankers. I mean, that's always popular. Yeah, let's do a bit of history in this. So let's talk about Taylorism or Frederick Winslow Taylor, who's an interesting individual. So we're talking about the growth of production here. So he's the first person in kind of scientific management who thinks that workers are solely motivated by money and the way to motivate them, retain them, is to pay them right. But what he does, which is interesting and it's still done in a number of places today, is he doesn't view employees as individuals. He sees them as part of a larger workforce and by getting them to do their specialist tasks well with the best possible tools available to do that, they will do their individual task. They'll be paid well enough for it. Our production will be okay. Now, this is developed in the late 1890s and it's gone on since. But it loses out to lack of variety in the role, and so if I'm just smacking something on the head all day, or buffering something or whatever it might be, I begin to go oh, I'd quite like some variety in my work. So actually it has a limited effect, but Taylorism in producing productive workforce is quite important.

Speaker 1:

Henry ford had a very clever way of motivating, retaining people, because before people work much harder, he more or less coined the nine to five and said look, you can clear off at five, don't be in before nine. And everyone right, because it's been a bit looser. I've been turned up at 8, 30 out of here. At six he went no, no, no. And five days a week forget the saturdays, very common in the us to work on saturdays for years. So ford thinks he can retain better workers by having a sort of motivating set week.

Speaker 1:

And then the other thing that branches out next, which you've heard of, is the experiment which is generally coined as the Hawthorne effect. So these are Harvard Business School people in the 20s, so Elton Mayo, fritz Roethlisberger or Roethlisberger and William Dixon. What they do is they go to this place called the Hawthorne Works, which is enormous. I've looked at maps of it. It's scarily big Western Electric Company in Illinois, 45,000 people working there. Okay, and their experiment shows that the way to motivate people is just observe them. Let them know that you're watching them and you're going right. This is what you're doing. Pay them attention. Um, yeah, no, no, no that's not.

Speaker 3:

There's got to be more to than just watching, otherwise it's like big brother, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

no, no, talking to them, asking them getting their input on the work.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's a bit, a bit like brazil. You know the guy in brazil getting input from people who are working on the shop floor in terms of decision making and that sort of thing, no, but this is give an input into your working conditions because we want to make them better.

Speaker 1:

Let's really value your input. This is where it goes interesting, even if they didn't implement all of the feedback stuff, because they'd had a chance to input and been observed in their work and felt someone's getting a much greater empathy over what they're going through. They were more motivated, rather than they don't understand what we do down here, which is now why people do annual staff feedback surveys yeah, and pay them more just before the sunday times best companies to work for comes out, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So that's the hawthorne is that if we spend some time asking, observing, trying to improve their conditions, reviewing things and making an impact on their working environment, we can motivate and retain employees. Okay, I mean, there's so many I've discounted because there were so many lovely spinoffs of this. The other thing is, you know we talk a lot about feeling purposeful at work, if you like. So if you take all of that as the intrinsic stuff is your own feeling of accomplishment, what do companies do to do that? Well, it is really building on hawthorne. They recognize your strengths, allow you to do that, praise you, give you feedback and then all the extrinsic stuff money and stuff. I used to get like and you probably had this cheap frames with uh, printed out awards in it. You know the number one seller of this and they'd hand out these black employee of the month.

Speaker 3:

It's that sort of yes yes, all that extrinsic stuff.

Speaker 1:

Some people don't give a monkey's about that no in a sense it's a sort of sugar spike.

Speaker 1:

And in fact when I was joking in my research about that, contact centers, when we walk around them, sometimes yay, and someone gets given a massive box of celebrations or a load of Krispy Kremes, it's like let's give them confectionery rewards yeah, sugar spike. And then they're absolutely hopeless on the phone for hours. So sometimes short term, you know. Today I remember I was in a place and this woman called Joanna running it, went and got a bit of Blu-Tack and stuck 20 quid on the board and said the first person to make a sale, come and take that off and that's yours. And it's like what's going on?

Speaker 3:

here, oh that's so common. But actually what it does show is that somebody will just immediately pick up the phone and make a sale because they think, well, I'll have that. And isn't it funny how the brain clicks in, whereas 30 minutes before that was the last thing you were thinking yeah. So I mean, that happened to me before. I had to sell a page of advertising by five o'clock that day, or we were going to pull a project and I went running into my director's office saying I've sold a page, I've sold a page. And we were all jumping up and down and glad handing each other. I mean, had he not given us that deadline, I don't think I would have bothered. So it just goes to show that sometimes these things work.

Speaker 4:

The reality is sales training. This podcast has been created by Reality Training. We're a UK-based training and leadership brand who work across all sectors to improve businesses and their people. Our tagline is Selling Certainty, because that's what we do Give you more certainty in how you do things and give you certainty about how you sell things.

Speaker 1:

Find out more at realitytrainingcom let's go into now some other stuff which is you know it's quite fun and we'll just condense it down the job characteristics model.

Speaker 1:

You're right you're gonna like this and I've made up that that he didn't want to give his first name neither of the two blokes working on this because the people who did this called hackman and oldman. So I'm making out it's gene hackman and gary oldman, that they got a bit bored working on film sets and they thought they'd yeah, they do some occupational psychology not bad, it's not a bad, you know switch so think about all the companies you work with and just tell me where you think you've had this so skill variety, the degree to which the job requires skills and talents.

Speaker 3:

So this is a way of keeping you satisfied yeah, I mean, I've had that in one or two jobs, but not okay yep task identity the degree to which the job has contributed to a clearly bigger project. I think a lot of the companies I've worked with have been incredibly siloed, exactly, exactly, incredibly so. You don't actually know what your input is to the overall success of the organization.

Speaker 1:

Spot on. So Gene Hackman and Gary Oldman basically say I can't say that because it's probably the real. Hackman and Oldman say that if you're beavering away and you go, where's this going? You don't even know where it's going. You're not going to feel so good and motivated and rewarded. No Task significance, which is slightly different to identity, is the degree to which the job affects the lives or work of other people. What I do keeps kids happy in schools. What I do make sure everyone gets into work on time.

Speaker 3:

What I do no, I mean, that's so rare yeah I can't imagine many commercial organizations really thinking about now.

Speaker 1:

I talked to tash teacher. My wife and I often say you're lucky. I've never called it tar significance, but I often say you know, she was in the pub not long ago and a load of ex-students from 15 years ago came up to and started Mrs Blake, hugging her. I'm now doing this and I thought you have extreme impact. These people go off and do other things and you've really helped them. Again you have that, but most of us, you know, we don't see that impact. You've got real. I'll now call it task significance.

Speaker 1:

So the next one that keeps you motivated and satisfied is autonomy.

Speaker 3:

Well, we've done several podcasts on this subject. Well, tell the listeners what that is. Well, the freedom to make decisions and to decide and not have to keep on referring to managers all the time, or just check with my manager. The moment you stop doing that and you make a choice, and that choice will be backed by the organization, then you get growth and development and you become, you know, master of your own game. How many?

Speaker 1:

people a week are reality trainers coming across who you know? Variance in autonomy isn't there.

Speaker 3:

It's so difficult sometimes, because what you get is new people who've never done something before who start doing it. They need to be taught and need to learn their jobs up to a point, but as soon as you can, you need to try and give them a level of autonomy where they can then start making choices, because they start adapting their own styles and that sort of thing. If it's, too, that's going to contribute to some of the things you talked about earlier.

Speaker 1:

So the next one is task feedback. That's the degree to which the employee is provided with clear, specific, detailed information about the effectiveness of what they've done. It's quite simple, isn't it? But you say well done, you know you did that thing earlier. The architect's taken it down to the bank and they love the design and the way you laid it out means that we're going to build the bank, or whatever. How many people have given that? So I thought as a thing to google the job characteristics model. You can map that against you and say what are we doing as a business to create skill variety, task identity, significance, autonomy and feedback? It's not bad, is it?

Speaker 3:

it is quite good. I think the problem with feedback is that these days we try wrongly in my view to give mostly positive feedback and if anything negative happens, it's either ignored or forgotten or sort of scotched over and people don't do much about it. And I think what that does? It means it makes people very nervous about making mistakes and I think there's a terrible fear of making mistakes these days. People need to make mistakes to learn lessons, to develop, to grow. Somebody once said to me a manager I worked with years ago. He said if you've got somebody who's making lots of mistakes, it means they're really trying, and sometimes we miss that.

Speaker 1:

I wholly agree. And we'll cut straight to one of the people I spoke to, danny hoskins, who said as a sales manager he's got some very young people coming into the the beer selling trade and they're making mistakes and he says this is great because then we can sit down and talk about what they did or didn't do. But they're keen, so that he finds they're quite motivated to be given autonomy to try things. Sometimes they're not prepared enough. Sometimes they do a big pitch but forget to do the tasting, or it can be anything. But I absolutely agree with you. I think if you've got a rigid environment, the only thing I don't well, it's not that I don't necessarily agree with, but I think it's slightly different. People are afraid of harsh feedback, but I think what I see happening in some environments is they don't do any of the difficult conversation. Then suddenly the individual they're meant to manage is suddenly on whatever they call these things pips, or yeah, performance plans so they've not done the feedback and then it's go straight to I'm sorry, what it's?

Speaker 1:

first time I've heard it, yeah, but I've got all the evidence now.

Speaker 3:

Yeah how much effort and time's gone into that, yeah, to get to that point.

Speaker 1:

I've got a really difficult employee in my team. Have you told them? No, I'm watching them. They're still on probation. Why don't you try and help, you know? I find that odd it's poor management.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and that comes back to the original thing that if you've got a bad manager, you'll know they're bad, because any negative feedback they'll hold until it's too late. That's bad management. Yeah, you know why didn't we talk about this three months ago? Well, so you spend all that time watching me make mistakes, watching me get things wrong, and watch me being less effective, rather than coaching me or developing me to be better, which might mean it's personal. They just want to get rid of you, absolutely right, which is well.

Speaker 1:

These days it's not so easy to do Something right, which is well. These days it's not so easy to do something else right. Let's go to another bit of uh theory. Frederick herzberg with his two-factor theory of motivation. Now this is fun.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I can just see all our listeners now desperately googling oh, they will be go through these.

Speaker 1:

It's just brilliant I've had to select some of the stuff in this. Yeah, he says that in a company you've got a bunch of people called satisfiers and you've got another bunch who are dissatisfiers I mean don't be perfect so many ways.

Speaker 1:

Couldn't you, yeah, okay the difference is is your satisfiers. They're going around and everything they do is associated with job satisfaction, okay. And then the other lot, interestingly, interestingly, the dissatisfiers. Their motivation is associated with hygiene or maintenance, right, so keeping it as it is, keeping it clean, orderly, tidy, that's what you're doing over there. We don't want to do any of that. So your dissatisfiers want the work environment to be right, right, whereas all the satisfiers are going on about doing it right and motivating and sort of really achieving stuff. As, whereas you've got all these dissatisfiers going around, going, hang on a minute, what's the policy? Can we follow that? And if you've got too many dissatisfiers in the company and you're a satisfier, you're going to go flipping. Oh, this lot just want to run this as a kind of system. I'm out of here.

Speaker 3:

It's such great language and um, we've just got to be so careful well, I can talk about companies at bus, my grandfather's business.

Speaker 1:

They're a manufacturer making parts for cars and stuff. Okay, yeah and as a kid I worked in the factory. I remember on my first day this bell went and I carried on doing what I was doing, which was going through old purchase ledger copies and we could throw out everything from five years. I think the law has changed now and this bloke walked past me and he was about five years old. I mean, what are you doing? I went, what?

Speaker 1:

am I doing yeah, what are you doing? I went I'm just, uh, doing the. Yeah, I can see what you're doing, but what are you doing? Doing? And I went I don't understand. I was about 17. I went I'm just no, I know what you're doing, but what are you doing? And he wouldn't let me away with it and he wouldn't give me any more help with the question. And then someone put their arm on his shoulder and said Gary, leave him alone, that's Michael's grandson. And he went oh, all right, but he didn't care about that. He went. So what he said what are you doing? The bell has gone. He did not want me to be working a minute longer.

Speaker 3:

He thought I was insane and all I was doing was one extra box, so I didn't have to look at that box in the morning. That's slightly fascistic. Look at timekeeping and unionizing.

Speaker 1:

You could say oh yeah, there were a number of people who were out of there on the bell.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, okay, but then that's also similar, though, to what Steve Jobs used to do. So Steve Jobs at Apple would wander along the corridor, see someone come the other direction, say hello there, what do you do? And if that person couldn't give a succinct and specific answer as to the value they were delivering to Apple, that person wasn't going to be around for any longer, because Steve Jobs' perspective was that you should know what value you are delivering to this organization. You should know what your purpose is. How do you connect that to that? What are you saying? Is that the bloke? Because what you could have said, had you been a bit older and a bit more experienced, is that I'm making my life easier for tomorrow by efficiently having this thing done on time, and the guy can't argue with that, because that's you sticking he may have done well.

Speaker 1:

Well, you, you don't need to, or so you may have come back with something else. There we are.

Speaker 3:

So back to your original point about the purpose of someone, what it is they're there to do, and I think there's lots of organizations who have employ many people who have no real idea what their purpose is, what their value is, where they're delivering any value the line that I think sums it up from hertzberg and all this research.

Speaker 1:

He says this, and I'll read it, because I wrote this bit down providing hygiene and maintenance needs for people prevents dissatisfaction but will never contribute to satisfaction because, it's a basic requirement for life but some people are sticklers and they want all of that, so they want it to run.

Speaker 1:

And funny, I was listening to an economist the other day and your comment about managers should maybe be doing this Veblen. This economist said managers don't ever want overproduction, they really want to control production. Veblen loved industrialists and entrepreneurs because he said they were creative and trying to make products and help the country grow. But your managers were the best one in the world. They wanted to limit production and control it. Because he would possibly lean to say a number of them are dissatisfiers, let's run it in this way. They're not leaders, they're managers of things.

Speaker 3:

Well, that's interesting. Interesting, isn't it? Because I think you could also say that we've worked with sales teams and sales managers who don't want their individuals to go way over target. What are you, yeah, what are you doing?

Speaker 3:

don't go way over target put that in the in the box for next month. Yeah, no, but I can earn more commission. No, no, no, no, you don't want to do that. Yeah, you've hit your target. Now let's just make life easier for the next month. Now, that's classic stuff, where what you're actually saying is let's not go too far over, then we won't earn anything and the targets will be thrown up. It's such a negative way to work. It's such a demotivating way to work. Why not motivate people to make as much money as possible, because we're scared that they're going to do better than us and make more money than us?

Speaker 1:

either they'll do better than us and make more than us, or, as a manager, I'll have a harder job trying to achieve the new targets that we set after this totally totally, which is actually counterproductive ultimately.

Speaker 1:

That's, that's what veblen goes on about. So, in a sense, don't just cut out a layer of management almost cut out management. You talked about culture. I think one thing that came up from conversation with Jeremy working with a growing accountancy business was that he thinks one of the attractions and this is a person who's had 30 years as his own entrepreneur, now he's working in an organization to become an employee. So I only spoke to people who are technically employees entrepreneur and now he's working in an organization become an employee. So I only spoke to people who are technically employees. He said what's very attractive is all the directors work in the business, not just on the business.

Speaker 1:

Now that is counter to you and I when we started the business and we meet people who say, as you're growing, you've got to stop working in the business, you've got to start working on the business. And we understand the lovely play on the two prepositions, but the point being is that what's attractive is you've got a senior director who might also be an accountant and in the in the booking system, might find himself sitting next to a very junior person and they see them working with customers and clients.

Speaker 3:

I think all of that becomes much harder the larger organization is and they're becoming larger.

Speaker 3:

If you're, if you're at your class at 147, that's eminently possible. I would say it. Once you get to two, three, four, a thousand people, then you've got a much harder way of working in the business. I'm there are directors who do do that and they burn out, they can, can't let go of stuff and they want to be in control, and then all of that stuff takes place. But I think the size of the business dictates that specifically. It's interesting because I think you and I there's bits that we enjoy doing, that we would want to continue to do in the business, but there's bits that we're also happy to let other people oh yeah do, and so I think maybe that changes as your career changes.

Speaker 1:

If you're in an organization long enough, then you would imagine there would be a shift but also can you imagine the extreme culture where directors in inverted commas senior people, whatever you want to them don't really do any of the work that culture might be? We're selling windows and doors here and you guys have no idea about that, and yet you know so you might. The further away you get from the customer, as John Seddon used to say, the further you get away from the customer, the less you understand what the business is like today.

Speaker 3:

I think you see that in so many things. There's that program in the US where CEOs go undercover into their own business and see what it's like.

Speaker 1:

They all are shocked and amazed, which means they haven't really been close to it and you just think well, what the hell have you been doing?

Speaker 3:

for the last 10 years then, because if it's taken this for you to realize the reality of what it's like, then clearly you've been so detached from what you're doing that it's almost as though the business has functioned despite your position rather than through your position, and I think that's an interesting note.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk briefly about the NHS. So a friend who's at the NHS very experienced one of the things that I think has changed with an organisation like that how do you motivate and keep people in the nhs? And if you think about people we know who are in the nhs, other people we know, it's a, you know, a huge beast with trust. So a couple of things came out of covid. Is they now have to assess people much more closely, give feedback on how they are and work out. In fact we should just access her language. You know the contentment and the structure. They've tightened up on a lot of, if you like, the pathways of communication, so they're trying to track that. On top of that is the recent pay awards, of course, so people are feeling that they're earning a bit more. There's this system called the gratitude card so staff can send and thank other to staff and other departments and that's audited. So your department is very grateful to another department, you say thank you and they audit how much of that thanks is going around.

Speaker 1:

I found that fascinating so you know there's sort of a lot more on kindness and stuff, but I think again, the thing that stood out for her is the extraordinary teamwork and the appreciation and that is what makes it an efficient and productive workforce under extremely challenging times. And your point, coming in as she ends her message with me, is it's now evolved to be so much bigger than ever envisaged. Finances can't match it. How do we continue to research and innovate? You know that's what makes it hard, but for her it's working with brilliant people who are, who are supportive and kind, right, which comes back to early. You know the kid at school if you're with enough good people, you're happier okay.

Speaker 3:

so we're going to have a break now and when we come back we're going to look at some other ways that many organizations will motivate and retain their staff.

Speaker 2:

Created by Reality Training, this podcast is one of our resources provided to our business audience and our clients. For access to more material, check out our website, realitytrainingcom, for links to YouTube, films, books and many other resources. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1:

So if we simplify you know we had some fun with looking at research and sort of the history of it you're really looking at salary bonus.

Speaker 1:

Bonus may not be money, so you might have organizations that say, go and stay in one of our cottages okay we'll give you this at the end of the discretionary mandatory, but it's often quite loose for people that aren't salespeople, that's a challenge Flexibility. So one of the ways that's come out of the hybrid world that we're now in is a lot of people are a little bit more happy in the work because there's flexibility of how and where they do it.

Speaker 3:

Well, this is an up and coming topic that we're going to be looking at on the podcast the idea of hybrid working and digital nomads. I have done a little bit of research, which says that lots of new starters are expecting to be able to work in a hybrid fashion from day one of their career, which I think is again quite a new thing. But maybe we shouldn't be too surprised.

Speaker 1:

Well, what's interesting about general flexibility? If you think about if you watch any sort of classic film or comedy or anything it could even be typical jack lemon film, if you like you'll see him getting his mac and going into a building to work it could be a bank, an insurance company, for example and the whole thing is a building and it has levels and hierarchies and departments. And what's fun in the building Is there a social night out? But that kind of idea that the flexibility comes within the building is now changed.

Speaker 1:

The flexibility comes in. How often do you go into the building, see your teams and again? We look forward to your podcast when you expand on this.

Speaker 3:

Well, just you mentioning that made me think about the series Mad Men, which was very popular about 10 years ago, which was set in the 50s, started in the 50s and in that everybody was in the office before nine. Everybody, everyone's assistant was in the office before nine. Everybody, everyone's assistant was in the office before them. They would never arrive after their boss, so that was a huge hierarchical thing. But people's lives existed within the office. Everybody smoked in the office, everybody drank in the office, everyone had their lunch in the office, everything took place in that office all day long. It was like a whole life took place and then everything else was superfluous. Actually, it came second to that time spent in the office and that was deep-rooted for a while. But of course now it's shifted completely.

Speaker 1:

Well, companies. I was in an interesting big international organization yesterday and they're making quite a lot of the building being bream b-r-e-a-m I think it is an acronym meaning it's built in such a way with such ecological credentials. So martha, my daughter, who's just started uni, she was feeding back to me dad, we've got a bream building here and I looked online and it's extraordinary building the way it does stuff with water, everything, so that I don't know how many people would be. I'm happier to go into work now because there's a bream building there. But what companies are doing is, before the pandemic they were, you know, large companies like facebook, where I had a friend gyms, restaurants, cafes, showers all of that was built. Now companies are going that's standard, that it's not innovative, it's we've got to have that anyway. What else?

Speaker 3:

bowls of fruit. Nice food?

Speaker 1:

it's not just like the ad agency with a football table. What else do we?

Speaker 3:

need to do. But then, ironically, all of that will be in place and there'll be a huge room full of people, some on higher up stools, working on higher up tables, some on stand up desks, some sitting in a team. And yet now, more and more, I also see in the corner of the office a booth, a soundproof booth, not cheap, and you go in there. If a you want to work in silence, you actually need to go into a little booth and pull the door shut so you can focus on something, or you do your private little meeting in there, or your zoom meeting in there. And that's another shift where we all used to work together in a team and the hubbub was part of the scenario, but now you can take yourself off to your little booth and focus there for a bit so the only booths again I'm thinking cinematically, for this is where I go often is the only booths that were like that with the telephone booths, sure?

Speaker 1:

so if you needed a private conversation, you go in the telephone booth yeah, and there were stand-up ones with the stuff that came around their heads, yeah, so otherwise it's the busy office and you've got to just live with it by the other.

Speaker 3:

Tandem is that you get organizations, have an entire company on one big elongated desk going down a big room so the directors are at one end and everybody else is at the other and then you just move up and down the desk depending on who you want to talk to, and that's another, you know, concept of we all work together. We're all part of one big team and the fact that you're just broken up in teams as you go down is one of those things so let's talk about gen z millennials.

Speaker 1:

So one of the other things that motivates retain them is that we are far more supportive with their mental health yeah good so that's changed hugely I mean if we know we've got children that have come out of all that period and how hard it is for them.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that comes up just in general research, talking to people, is I'm motivated as long as this relatively constant communication and I know what the hell's going on, and some companies are good at sharing success. So if you take large companies that actually employ people and we know people who have these internal marketing communication jobs, but let's know about some of the good stuff we're doing Can we share that please? Because that's motivating to know that you've won this or we've just done this. Some companies are very poor. Did we not tell you that we just won that? No, and that goes back to Oldman and Hackman's thing about what's the tar significance you know if, and it also comes out of the pandemic what also motivates me to stay with an organization, because they let me do something that before the pandemic I had to have a rare condition or you would not let me do this. Dogs, well done. How did you get?

Speaker 3:

that so quickly, because the pandemic everyone got everyone got a dog.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well done so that's it.

Speaker 3:

And in fact, one of our clients now allows dogs in, yes, well, and my wife.

Speaker 1:

So her school is full of hounds. And Axel was in yesterday and I said what did the kids do? I said how many kids do you think stroked him and fussed him and stuff? She said OK, I'll work, work it out. How many do you think? It is over a hundred, correct, over a hundred kids fussed him? I said a hundred. She said yeah, and he just sort of greeted all of them and some he would lift his leg. Can you scratch my tummy please? And a hundred kids now that's a hundred. Interactions with children to make them feel better, that's incredible good and very good.

Speaker 1:

You don't have to organize child care, don't have to do anything else like that. The only other thing that is sort of requires more understanding and stuff is if you were to sort of lift your job to be part of a higher purpose and you were contributing to the greater good, you're likely to be motivated to retain. So if you work with an organization that is really trying to empower a community, that can be very, very motivating, that you're part of something that is quite innovative and the whole community benefit. It promotes health and a good environment. It's very hard to do so. Some of these sort of higher playing areas, if you like. Very few companies achieve that. But then if you look at something like the National Trust that relies on volunteers or you look at charities that relies on volunteers, what's interesting is they retain their employees in inverted commas because they're not paid, because they feel so purposeful. So they feel what I do allows people to walk around this ancient building and I tend to the grounds where I stub the tickets here or or it could be. I work in this hospice shop.

Speaker 1:

More and more research shows that if somebody feels they're contributing to the greater good, they're likely to hang around on low wages or even volunteers, so that's quite interesting as well. That's about it, really. The only other thing that I found quite interesting was you know that classic about, hey, talent management, let's get more A players, and all that I read a lovely article about hang on to your B players, and that there's far more B players in your organization than a's. And as you said yourself, you know these mavericks going over target, whoa, whoa, whoa. You two, slow down. You know this. I've got eight others. Can you, can you not over perform too much?

Speaker 3:

that's the simon sinek thing in the navy seals in the us. If you are a a b player effect, but with high integrity, high trust, you're more likely to be made an officer and be more trusted than someone who's a maverick but low trust, who's really amazing.

Speaker 1:

And we like films like that, don't we? We're the maverick.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely right.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a really good one, and actually you could argue that a whole company of b players will be yes, and, and if they've got high absolutely, and and the very simple thing is, the way to motivate, retain them is simply this get to know them and appreciate them, because if you're constantly praising your a's but we've talked about this on another episode your a's are disloyal bonders and out for themselves.

Speaker 1:

They're gonna jump to another company in two years and then another one in two years. I was talking to somebody the other day about a job that we're not going to do and I looked them up on linkedin before we spoke. They are 15 years younger than me and on their 27th job and I just thought whoa, what's going on here?

Speaker 1:

so anyway, lots of ways to try and motivate and retain employees. By all means go back and have a look at some of the fun models and stuff. But primarily, if you can try and recruit people who will fit in and be kind and listen and ask and praise and be part of the greater whole, then you've got a good chance of holding on to them. If there's poor communication, no one knows what they're doing and you think it's all about money, then you're pretty outdated really.

Speaker 3:

Well, thank you for that, Jeremy. That's been very, very interesting, and I should be looking up some of those names when we finish Hackman and Oldman.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Thank you for listening. If you think a friend might enjoy this on a car journey, why don't you forward it to them through whichever listening service you or they have? If you'd like to get in touch with us, you can do that. Give us some feedback. But thank you very much for listening. Cheers for now. Catch you on another one soon. Bobby bye, thank you.