What do you really want?

I came across a great Harvard Business Review blog post yesterday by Lori Goler, Brynn Harrington, and Adam Grant, called "The 3 Things Employees Really Want: Career, Community, Cause."  The article starts with a very brief discussion of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, something that I have talked about before in a previous post (see "What can we learn about leadership from a movie?").  The premise of Maslow's Hierarchy is that we are all driven by a hierarchy of needs, starting with the basics first (physiological needs, such as food and water, shelter, and sleep), followed by love and belongingness, self-esteem and prestige, and lastly self-actualization.  We can only seek to fulfill the higher levels of need only after we fulfill the ones below - in other words, if we are not addressing our basic physiological needs, we will not be able to fulfill the need for friendship, intimacy, and the sense of connection (i.e., the "love and belongingness" level of the pyramid).  Most psychological experts now agree that, while Maslow's Hierarchy is a good model, it is probably outdated and in need of modification, particularly with respect to how we motivate workers in the modern information/knowledge and service economies that are so prevalent today.


Goler, Harrington, and Grant suggest that in today's environment, organizations that focus on three things - career, community, and cause - will be the ones who are most successful (for example, according to one study companies listed in the "100 Best Companies to Work For in America" typically generate higher stock returns, on the order of 2.3% to 3.8% higher compared to their peers, in every year from 1984 to 2011).  The authors surveyed hundreds of thousands of employees in a twice yearly Facebook workforce survey and consistently identified career, community, and cause as the main motivators for employees:


Career focuses on the work itself.  It's more than just having a job - today's workers want to be able to use their strengths and skills to do something useful and productive, they want the autonomy to do so, and they want to be challenged to learn and develop their skills further.


Community focuses on the work environment.  Employees in today's knowledge and service economies want to be feel valued, respected, and cared about.  When they do a good job, employees want to be recognized.  Conversely, when they do a bad job, they want feedback so that they can improve and do better next time.  Employees want to feel like they are part of a team.


Cause focuses on a sense of purpose.  Employees want to feel connected to the organization's mission, vision, and values.  More importantly, they want that mission and vision to do some good in the world. 


Contrary to the popular belief that there are generational differences in workforce motivators, Goler, Harrington, and Grant found that there really were no significant differences between Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials.  As a matter of fact, regardless of how they analyzed their results (whether stratified by geographical location, type of industry, age/seniority, gender, or level of performance), the three most important drivers of workforce satisfaction - and by extension, workforce motivation - were career, community, and cause.


Organizations have to get this right.  The three authors also identified a meta-analysis that showed that when organizations do not fulfill the so-called "psychological contract"with their employees, the consequences can be catastrophic.  Breaking that contract leads to feelings of mistrust and even betrayal, which ultimately leads to poor performance, turnover, and in the long run, higher costs and lower profits/margins. 


In the end, we all want to trust that the people we work for have our best interests at heart.  We all want the organizations that we work for to serve a higher purpose.  And we all want to have a meaningful impact on this world.