Bill Gates’ approach to Employee Motivation…?

Now, I don’t know if Bill Gates ACTUALLY said this as employee motivation at Microsoft… but I DO know that many of them became millionaires.

This is a step prior to the other post I wrote on employee motivation but it provides a fair amount of the foundations….

The story goes that a good few years ago, the employees of a then little known firm called Microsoft were offered share options instead of Christmas bonuses when the firm was still in its infancy. Of course, those who believed in Bill Gates and his vision of “a personal computer in every home” took the share options and those who decided that this young upstart was crazy and way out of his depth probably took the bonuses. Whilst there was a difference in the “Instant – but short-lived gratification” (The Christmas bonus) and the “Delayed but compounded gratification” (The Microsoft share options) experienced by the “Non-believers” and “Believers” respectively, their actions were largely dictated by what they believed would happen in the future with Microsoft and whether or not they believed in Gates’ Vision would come to fruition. I guess you could call that delayed employee motivation

We all know what happened with Microsoft shares – they went through the roof.

Employee motivation…. a contradiction in terms?

This brings me onto one of the most important factors of getting people to support you, your ideas and your vision in  business.

How to develop employee motivation within a workforce is something that has puzzled managers for many years but  has recently become even more important. Gone are the days that people would swap their lives for “The business”.  That loyalty, especially in cut-throat, highly competitive markets, has gone. Especially when you are looking for the retention of “hard-hitting, impression making, alpha types” that give your business that cutting edge over the competition.

So what is the best way to get employees on your side, ready to go out and represent the company as if it were their own? To talk with passion about the place of their employment. To brag to their friends about the company their work for?

I will tell you some things that it’s not. It’s NOT the amount of money they get paid. It’s not the bonuses they are promised. It’s not the boozy lunches, it’s not the Golf Days…

The truth about employee motivation…

It comes down to much more than that.

Let me take a little time out here to explain why money is not an employee motivation factor – especially on a salaried basis.

People spend in accordance with what they earn. If you pay a person more, very often, they will spend more.

Sometimes even getting deeper into debt because they are purchasing more and more expensive items – normally items that lose value quickly too. So six months down the line, the person earning £45 000 per year is no better off than they were when they got to the end of the month when earning £40 000 per year. This will probably not lead to an increase of employee motivation. So they see no difference and there is no different reaction. Someone working for a one-off bonus may be slightly different as it’s a sizable one-off payment and no doubt there is a clear target that needs to be met prior to obtaining that goal. This will result in working late nights and early mornings until the goal is achieved.

I read somewhere that it takes three months from a pay increase for an employee to move back to “wanting more” again.

So what is it that makes employees great? That brings them in as a team and gets them all acting in unison?

From my experience, it comes down to 2 things and for all you business owners and managers out there, if you get these two things right, your company will become a very sought after employer and you will retain more good staff.

The first point is that employees need to feel understood and valued for their abilities and secondly, more importantly, they need to feel inspired with the company venture. The project. The Vision.

Steve Covey talks about this in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, about people who have their own unique mission with-in the business and are very proud of it.

To achieve employee motivation, the employee needs to be led. They need to feel that they are valued. If you show someone, anyone that you value them, be it in a relationship, as a business partner, as a client or even as an employee, they will go that extra mile for you. By just saying, “I pay your salary, so you do what I say” is likely to get peoples backs up. Nobody likes to feel like they are being manipulated into doing something.

Now, let’s be honest here: Not all employees are going to be people who are going to be the work focused, “Go the extra mile” for the company types. Not all of them are going to be prime examples of employee motivation. You are always going to have people who come in at 9 on the dot and leave at one minute to 5 but my guess is that those people have their passion somewhere else – in another field but they are more than capable of doing their job to the required standard. If a manager can talk to them about their passion and show at least an interest in the employee, the employee will in turn become more manageable.

In closing, a large amount of managers and business owners would give anything to win their employees “Hearts and Minds”. To make them totally congruent with the values of the business. Achieving this is much easier said than done. But, again quoting from Dr Covey, “Seek first to understand and then to be understood”, learn to get an idea of what makes your employees tick. Understand them and then move to allowing them to understand your point of view and how your point of view and the companies point of view will benefit them. If the manager can do this, winning hearts and minds will be a lot easier…. and hopefully, a lot more automatic.

Now to tie this in with the heading that no doubt captured your imagination. If any of those employees who worked for Microsoft in that era were asked “Do you like your boss?” I have a funny feeling it would have been met with a response along the lines of “Oh Hell YEAH…! He made me into a millionaire!!”

These opinions are my own but ones that I have used in the workplace too. I know there are a great number of business owners, mangers and employees who read this blog so I would warmly welcome your comments on this.

Have a GREAT week, folks

PH.

If you have any comments on employee motivation, I would love to hear them….