If we asked you, “what do you think the number one factor to help motivate and keep employees engaged in their work is” what would you guess?
Would you say?
Rewards? Or
Recognition? Or
A great team? Or
Something else entirely?
Go ahead, take a guess. What do you think it is?
Theresa Amabile, Harvard professor and expert in creativity and workplace productivity, conducted a study that asked 600 managers from a variety of organizations this very question, and the top answer received was recognition for good work.
Did you have a similar answer? If so, you might not be that surprised then.
However, what you might find surprising is that in subsequent research Amabile found out that the managers in the survey were wrong. Recognition, it turns out, is not the most important factor in employee engagement!
By analyzing more than 12,000 diary entries from more than 200 employees across diverse industries, Amabile and her colleague Steven Kramer found that the #1 driver that helps employees feel more engaged and enthused at work is… (drum roll, please) whether or not the employees felt that they were making progress towards their goals.
That’s right, progress. According to their research, if during a work day, employees felt like they made some positive movement towards achieving their goals, they reported feeling more positive and having a stronger sense of drive and purpose at work. When they felt like they were running into obstacles or that their goals were constantly shifting, their overall moods were lower.
Amabile and Kramer detail their research and many of the practical implications in their book, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. (highly recommended!)
As a manager or leader, if you want to help your employees be more motivated, you might want to leverage the progress principle by:
- Helping employees clarify goals
- Providing enough support (resources and time)
- Helping them monitor progress (no matter how small)
And you might want to do your best to:
- Avoid changing goals haphazardly
- And avoid holding up resources
And if you do want to use recognition, go ahead and make the most of it.
Recognize your employees for the great progress they are making!
Comments