Now obviously, if someone fancied knocking on my door one day and giving me a million pounds, I wouldn’t say 'No thanks, I’m alright'. I have too much of an Amazon Prime addiction to pass up the opportunity! And as much as I love watching my payslip arrive in my inbox, I can honestly say that my work is not driven by money.
If you ask different people what they do with the money they earn from work, I think we would all be quite shocked to hear what people do. Other than money for living and general costs that the average person indulges every month, what option do we create, or reward ourselves with? Some people may collect something, some people pour money into pets, some people enjoy holidays, and some people enjoy further investment.
My point is, we are all different, so why do we manage people the same?
The industry is experiencing a very concerning and distressing time of recruitment and retention, we as an industry are making moves forward to drive for new professionals and offering different training and assurance schemes in order to keep people within the industry, but one vital thing is still being overlooked.
In my experience, within the cleaning industry and outside, most businesses run with the belief that every employee wants the same thing out of work, wherever their position may be on the hierarchal pyramid. Just because Director A may want to work hundreds of hours a month and earn £000s doing so, does not mean that I want the same thing, nor does it mean that my colleagues want the same thing. I find so much pride myself in working within a vibrant and diverse industry that celebrates its professionals and the differences we all have, yet, when it comes to people management sometimes those things can be overlooked.
What do we need to do? Find out what motivates your team!
We risk losing incredible individuals in our industry if we do not understand what motivates them to do the important work that they do! If we do understand, we can develop our management skills to ensure that our workers feel respected.
Not convinced?
Take two different people, let’s call them person A and person B. Person A is motivated by money, and person A wants to work as many hours as they can and earn as much overtime as they can. Person B is a single parent, and although extra money would help, they are happier working 30 hours a week and spending more time at home. Both employees are working 30-hour-a-week contracts, and you need 10 hours a week to fill in overtime. Because it isn’t fair for ‘one person to be expected to work outside of their normal working hours’, you continuously push person A and person B to split the overtime. What ends up happening? Person A feels cheated out of overtime allowance because you have actively given it to someone that hasn’t asked for it and may start looking elsewhere for better money or more hours. Person B feels disrespected and feels like the work they are doing is getting in the way of their parental needs and duty and decides to start looking for other work at fewer hours so they can ensure that they are home with their child.
Many people believe that understanding an individual's motivation is too personal in the place of business, but I struggle to see how you can effectively run a business without understanding what is motivating the people that are conducting the work.
Try it out! Understanding motivation is professional and will ensure that your staff are happier, settled and motivated in their own lives and in their work lives.
Remember:
What motivates?
Have you got a place for that motivation?
How can you embed that into the business?
If you don’t allow time for motivation what could end up happening?
www.bics.org.uk
About the contributor
Kelsey Hargreaves
Assistant Technical Specialist
BICSc