Going to work in the morning is related with happiness or at least a state of acceptance next to your job. You work 8 to 10 hours a day, you get paid, and then you get back to your life.

In the same time, job satisfaction is a necessary evil. Your existence is conditioned by the needs that you have and also the needs of those for which you are a provider. No matter how much we get, we want more. Is what drives us forward, being in the same time the root of our unhappiness.

No matter how much the organization does, in the end job satisfaction is a choice, an acceptance of your responsibilities with a reward that influences not if you go to work, but if you go to work at the same company next month.

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According to John Meyer and Natalie Allen there are three different types of organizational commitment:

Affective commitment is based on positive emotions. The employee is identifying with the organization. He also identifies with a good financial compensation, job satisfaction.

Continuance commitment is when you have no other choice but to stay. Leaving the company involves economic costs and social costs based. This type we are going to see more often these days.

Usually continuance organizational commitment was determined by being in the same company for years. Because people developed competencies that could be applied to new positions they started to move more often. Talented people were scarce. Now, with the “crisis”, jobs are scarce. Only for now …

Normative commitment is based on what you feel is right. You perceive as having an obligation and you stay with the organization because is the right thing to do. Loyalty is never overrated … is only underpaid.

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When a new team is created, people share their beliefs and values which lead to attitudes that reflect the opinions of the majority.

When a new member enters a team, he goes through an induction process which could include communication of norms. In most cases, the new employee will ask around or observe what the others are doing.

Various norms classifications:

1. Prescriptive – define the behavior that should be performed
2. Proscriptive – define the behavior that should be avoided

or

1. Appearance norms – what you were becomes what you are
2. Informal social arrangements norms – the informal groups
3. Allocation of resources norms – who gets what
4. Reward allocation norms – the rewards are granted according to different principles:
   • Equity – you get what you deserve
   • Equality – everybody gets the same
   • Reciprocity – you give me, I will give you
   • Social responsibility – you get something because you need it
5. Performance norms – you do what the others do in order to be perceived as a high performer or “one of us”

Why are norms useful?

1. They ensure the team existence – the members will support the norms as a way to survive
2. They increase predictability which can lead to increased efficiency
3. They satisfy the need of belonging to a group. The norms are a differentiation factor next to other teams.

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A manager is required to evaluate the performance of his/her subordinates, usually on a yearly basis. Their recommendation is the basis for an extra payment – the merit pay.

Merit pay plans allow to differentiate the high performers from the rest and to reward for a non repetitive task. Most researchers agree that they are not really working.  The main issue could be that the employee’ performance is judged in a subjective manner by the manager.

The lack of effectiveness comes from:

• Low discrimination distance. When there is no accurate measuring system in place, a manager will have the tendency to equalize the merit pay. This will make high performers unhappy, and low performers confused.
• Merit pay is too small. Because the merit pay is calculated as percentage from the salary, it will go unnoticed, and the level of satisfaction will not act as a motivator.
• Pay level is secret. Merit pay is too. Most of the companies in this world impose a policy of secrecy over wages, benefits and bonuses. I am sure that there arguments in favor of this. But, companies are made of people. When people do not know something they assume or invent. You can be sure that everybody will think that the other is paid better! Job satisfaction and motivation will decrease exponentially. If merit pay is kept secret, none of the employees will know who performs better and how much is performance paid with.

The methods of evaluating performance are evolving all the time. I think that, by now, there are enough objective criteria even to evaluate “the impossible to evaluate in numbers” white-collar employees’ performance. Merit pay could work only if managers give up their royal right of granting rewards and punishment based only on their subjective reasoning.

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Individual performance is important, but a company is not formed from one individual. A company is a team and its strategic needs can be supported by group-oriented pay plans.

Profit sharing is one of the most used incentive systems. Money-wise it might not make a difference in a big company because the impact on profit from one individual is small. But in a small company it matters and in time, when most small companies will become partnerships, and the notion of employee will be history, this will represents the only form of compensation.

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPPs)
An ESOP allows employees to own stock in the company without having to purchase shares. An ESPP allows employees to use after-tax wages to purchase stock in their companies, usually at a discounted price.
Implementation of such incentive plans is not easy. There are taxes implications, private companies are required by law to purchase ESOP share from the employee that leaves the company, and so on.
But as motivational factor, ownership remains in the top of the list. For start-ups, especially in this period of economical crisis, it can also be used as partial replacement for money that constitutes the salary.

Gainsharing incentive schemes have usually as goals: improved productivity, quality performance, customer service, cost reductions, etc. It differs from profit sharing by the fact that is not related to the company’s performance.
The employees participate in the decision-making process and the gains obtained when reaching the goals are shared between the company and the employees. Gainsharing requires a team oriented management style and can lead improvements in performance as well as increased commitment to organizational goals.
Some of the most known schemes are: the Scanlon Plan, the Rucker plan, and Improshare.

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A team does not have what is called “group thinking”. A team does not a leader as in somebody to lead. A team needs a manager that is, most of all, a facilitator with a small component of leadership.

Organizational behavior looks at a team as a group of people that interact with the sole purpose of achieving the goals of the organization. They are formal, as establish by the organization, or informal, as a response to the needs of the organization and the interest of the members.

Bruce Tuckman has defined 5 stages in the development of a team:

1. Formation of the team (Forming) – this is the first date stage but with a sense of purpose. The members have questions about each other and not too much about the project itself. The purpose is present as a feeling that interdependence exists between them.
2. Confrontation stage (Storming) – this is the stage in which roles are defined. It is also the period where people that understand the win-win concept define alliances and people that are territorial are showing their claws in an attempt of clever positioning.
3. Consensus building (Norming) – this is the acceptance stage. People accept that they rely on each other; the general rules (norms) are adopted.
4. Execution (Performing) – tasks are accomplished, the facilitator facilitates.
5. Closure (Adjourning) – this stage is the one where lessons learned are documented, and people take emotional based decisions about being in touch after.

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A certain behavior probability can be increased by the positive or negative reinforcement. Most of the means of reinforcement of employees’ behavior are rewards (promotions, benefits, etc.). They are valuable as long as they are connected in the mind of the beneficiary with the cause. Feedback is another buzz word here; everybody use it but few really give feedback.

To reduce the probability of a type of behavior according to Operant Learning Theory involves control. The extinction of a behavior is done by the termination of the positive reinforcement that is causing it. The punishment is done by an action that creates an unpleasant situation.

When you decide that punishment is required, do it now and do not act as you would regret it after!

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The concern for motivation in the work environment has change the purpose of job design. Job satisfaction, performance, customer satisfaction, and quality of working life are the goals that must be accomplished through job design and the associated techniques: job enlargement, job enrichment, job rotation.

Job scope is defined as a combination of the number of different activities performed by an employee and the level of control that an employee has upon how to perform those activities.

A manager has a high scope job because he performs a large number of activities (see Management – art of controlling processes and outcomes) and has a broader or narrower decision-making power.

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You make an effort and expect a performance. If performance is achieved you have the expectancy of a reward that will satisfy a need. All this process will take place only if you decide that satisfying your need worth all the effort.

Victor Vroom – Expectancy Theory is based upon the following three beliefs:

• Valence (from latin valent-, valens – to be strong) – refers to the strength that an individual has to prefer a particular outcome. In short: What’s in it for me?
• Expectancy – is what you think you can do and what the result will be.
• Instrumentality – is your carrot & stick process. Your perception that the work you do will get you paid.

We have also a little formula for this: Expectancy x Instrumentality x Valence = Motivation. This formula can be used to analyze things like: job satisfaction, choices of occupation, stability on the same job, effort that an employee will put in at work.

What a manager can do according to Expectancy Theory is to clarify the path of the employee by providing proper tools and training, an easy to understand performance evaluation system and mostly by listening to his problems.

If every individual has preferences for defining outcomes (higher pay, promotion, etc) it will be only common sense for a manager to define a motivational package accordingly.

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For an employee the company is supposed to be a family, a place in which you feel good, this being the main motivation and not the money. How about we treat this as a business for both sides? It is always about money. If next to money comes a pleasant social interaction and higher purposes … is fine.

When you negotiate your salary, the employer will try to pay you the smallest amount possible. The funny part is that if you tell the interviewer that you are there for the money, they will put you at the end of the list. So you lie and the carousel starts: they will think they tricked you and expect performance, you will be unsatisfied and will do work in … the smallest amount possible.
Everybody loses.

It should be a fair trade. You give your time and your competencies and you ask in return what you need and not what is offered.

Remember: You are part of the negotiation process and not the subject of negotiation. Personal branding should become your favorite jacket. The more you know about yourself, the more conscious you become of your value on the labor market.

Everything that is said about organizational behavior must respect the fair trade principles.

• Transparency and accountability
• Payment of fair price
• Gender equity
• Decent work environment
• Trade relations

We are so used to having freedom of speech but we do not care about our freedom to act. No matter the country, although the employer asks more work and dedication from you every day … he loves you until you ask for a raise.

Long-term relationships are based on solidarity, trust and mutual respect. You as an employee are the customer that buys-in the need for profit of the company every day. The organization should buy in exchange your need: the need for money.

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