Categories - Motivating

Football isn’t just a sport, it’s a business. A BIG business. The players are big and so are their bonuses. With Super Bowl hype swirling and 30 second TV ads being sold for $3 million apiece, it’s not surprising that Hoovers reports estimated annual sales of $6.9 billion for the NFL.

So what is it that makes the NFL so successful?

A great deal of the success of the NFL can be attributed to the incredible motivation of football players and staff who have taken game-play to an extraordinary level. From an HR perspective, it’s worth considering what motivates the players and what we can learn from the success of the NFL.

As any football fan will tell you, there is a lot more that motivates football players than just making money. There is fame, glory and love of the game, amongst other things. These motivating factors are important and shouldn’t be ignored, but let’s look at how the NFL rewards achievement with compensation.

Recent studies have made it clear that U.S. workers are growing unhappy, especially the younger ones. A recent Conference Board survey of 5,000 households, found that only 45 percent of U.S. workers were satisfied in their jobs – down from 61 percent in 1987.

Employee satisfaction dipped across the board, but workers younger than 25 were most unhappy in their jobs. “Less interesting jobs” was a key reason for worker unhappiness.

Similarly, a recent Tower Perrins report found that workers are falling victim to recession fatigue. The report notes that employees across large global organizations are expressing more negative views on a range of factors, from long-term career opportunities to company leadership. The report noted that “the most dramatic declines are in employees’ perceptions about their career development opportunities at their current employers.”

A dirty little secret about the current economic downturn is that it provides companies with an opportunity to make changes that otherwise would have been difficult.

Promoting employees without giving them a salary increase is one example.

Can’t do that, you say? Employees would never stand for it?

“That’s not the way we handle things around here?”

The fact of the matter is, for the majority of companies competing in today’s challenging environment, a number of rewards are offered to full-time, regular members of the workforce, including eligibility for both a regular bonus and an equity grant.

Everyone’s heard about the controversy over at NBC. After a not-so-successful attempt at prime time, Jay Leno is moving back to his old time slot and Conan O’Brien is hitting the road.

As all the drama unfolded, I started thinking about how NBC isn’t the only organization to mismanage its succession planning and face a battle of superstar wills. Consider the following...

You’ve got two superstars working for you in similar positions. Star A has been around the longest and is your #1 player. Star B is quickly coming up the ranks though and shows a tremendous amount of potential. Both stars have their own unique style, and both work hard and contribute substantially to your business.

It’s often impossible for an organization to pick who it values more – its seasoned veteran or its hot-shot rookie. While one has made substantial contributions, the other promises to be the next big thing – or an even better thing. Balancing the needs of both can be a tricky task…

I can’t keep up anymore.

One day the economy is up, the next day it is down. One month job losses are steady, the next they’re higher than expected.

We hear the economy has turned the corner, only to be warned that it might be a temporary thing. For the past 18 months, it has been a wild roller coaster ride, and I think most everyone would agree that the ride isn’t over yet.

For human resources departments, it’s been trying times as they work to balance organizational and business pressures with the needs of a stressed and fragile workforce. I think the next few months are going to push HR folks even more, as an increasing number of their employees express discontent over their pay.

I am lucky to work for a company that has developed a strong track record of growth for the past 10 years, where many of my teammates remain driven just like we're working at a start-up. For someone like me, it's a perfect fit. I love pushing the envelope and trying to make things better. It makes the work we do very meaningful.

Making things work better, however, often means change. Change is such a loaded word. Recent political campaigns emphasized change, and the concept proved sometimes divisive. For others, change means different, and different can be difficult.

Holiday celebrations always serve as a reminder of the start of another annual rite in which managers and employees participate: annual performance reviews, of course!

For many companies, performance review cycles run on a calendar year basis. That means December and January mark the beginning of the performance review process. And quite often, this elicits a string of colorful commentary from employees and managers alike. Real gems, such as:

“What? It’s that time of year again? Didn’t we just do this?”
“I really hate performance reviews; nothing good comes from them anyway!”
“I hate doing this. I mean, who has the time?”

As HR pros, we get it; we know it’s not easy. Performance reviews can be time consuming. And sometimes giving and receiving feedback can be really difficult, especially if it’s a difficult message that’s being delivered. But it’s not all that bad, either. At least it doesn’t have to be.

Chances are your company has made some tough decisions over the past year in order to cope with the economic climate. Perhaps you’ve frozen salaries, reduced your bonus pool, or cut an employee benefit. You probably agonized a bit over making the changes, but did you spend as much time talking with employees about the changes as you did planning and making them? Probably not, which could be a problem for you. Aside from confusing and upsetting your employees, you may have hurt your bottom line.

Watson Wyatt’s recently released Communication ROI Study details how effective employee communication is an indicator of financial performance, since better communication leads to more engaged employees, and engaged employees are more productive and reach their performance goals. When all else is equal, the company that makes great employee communication a priority and delivers on it will perform better than the company that does not.

Lucky for you, Watson Wyatt’s recipe for successful employee communication seems simple enough. All it takes is a bit of courage, innovation, and discipline. Here’s my take on what the report says:

Our last Salary.community meeting was hosted in London last week. I’ll admit, I’m a bit sad. I'm tired and relieved too, kind of like how it feels after your last party guest leaves for the night. The preparation beforehand can be lots of work, but seeing the party go just as you had planned makes it worth all that went into it.

In the end, no matter how much you plan every moment, it is the unplanned events that make your day special. Though we arrange for a full agenda of presentations and roundtable discussions, we understand the importance of unstructured networking time. User groups, professional associations and other organizational  meetings are a great opportunity for HR professionals to leave the office and talk to other professionals about the problems that they are facing in their organization.

We previously covered the importance of making time for performance reviews, and making performance reviews regular, comprehensive, and companywide. Just as crucial, however, is what is included in those reviews – and, perhaps equally vital, what is excluded. 

Quite often, a performance review can be different things to different entities:

• Manager – sees it as an opportunity to have a conversation with an employee on the latter’s strengths, developmental areas, and objectives going forward
• Human Resources – sees it as the culmination/roll-up of the ongoing one-on-one sessions that have occurred between manager and employee throughout the just-completed performance period, and an essential part of the Total Rewards paradigm
• Employee – sees it as the meeting in which I find out what raise I will be getting