Holding On To Your Best People II
Contributors to rewarding work

"Despite change and disruption in the workplace, Americans are amazingly upbeat about their jobs and employers," says World at Work (formerly the American Compensation Association) and Sibson & Company in their study Rewards at Work 2000: What Do Employees Value at Work?. Five elements contribute to rewarding work: direct financial (pay, incentives, stock options), indirect financial (benefits, non-cash recognition, perquisites), work content (autonomy, responsibility, skill utilisation, feedback), affiliation (knowledge that individual contributions are directly related to the vision of the organisation), and career (advancement, personal growth, training, employment security).

* Work Content appears to be the most significant motivator of work performance, and was cited by potential recruits as the most important job-selection consideration.

* Career is the factor most directly related to turnover intentions. Career opportunities provide employees with the motivation to achieve and the reason to stay.

* Affiliation ranked second in importance to Career in relation to turnover. "Employees may understand the vision and goals of their employer, but they need to know that their contribution is directly related to that vision." Good performance no longer guarantees future employment, and employees are more aware of outside opportunities ("permeability of boundaries"). How has our work world changed over the last 15 years? Increased emphasis on cognitive skills (not new to R&D), lack of boundaries across the organisation, environmental uncertainty, advancements in technology that quicken the pace of information and the speed of work itself, global interdependencies-all add up to the need for a flexible, resilient workforce.

Organisation consultants RHR International state that "Contrary to what some might believe, perceptions of favourable local job market conditions do not seem to play a role in either an individual's thoughts of quitting, or job search behaviours. An employee is most likely to stay with an organisation if he or she has a realistic and positive sense of what day-to-day work conditions will be like. Poor employee attitudes about a work situation are what stimulate the quitting process" (3). If this is so, what do we do?

Determine what employees' key expectations are and meet them whenever it makes sense. People are most likely to stay when they are (1) satisfied with their jobs (=meaningfulness of work + felt responsibility + knowledge of the results of one's work efforts), and (2) committed to their organisation (=decision latitude + coworker relations + compensation and benefits + organisational communication and internal job mobility).