Motivation Beyond Compensation

Compensation as always is a very touchy subject and people would prefer not to enter into a discussion on the same. Recent times of recession have brought out the worst fears among employees alive – packages dropping, being offered less on a hop, getting pink slipped. Though the last one is the extreme of the triggers that lead to depression, however money matters is something people are advised not to talk about, as one is said to be never satisfied.

Caught between the crossfire of a bad market, ever increasing costs and prices of everyday needs, the environment where to Company is located and the kind of culture that exists is a hapless employee who’s been serving for decades together putting in hard-work and sweat. At this time it would sound like a very unfair deal for the employee to be paid peanuts and he would always find lot many empathisers rooting for his cause. At manufacturing things get more vocal with a heavy presence of unions and local leaders.

But to understand from the organizations point of view the foundations that lay the structure of the compensation being offered is really important. Not all organizations can always tend towards operating to meet the demands of the market. Nor can they introduce a competitive compensation matrix that ends up becoming every one else’s envy. Climatic factors play a very important role in determining how many bands/levels can exist in the organization, can they go about partnering with consultancies to tap outside potential (resource), how best can they keep their employees happy yet never cross the line of being declared bankrupt, build the confidence among their employees despite a very poor pay.

And mind it building the confidence among employees is a really difficult task. Imagine extending your services for 3 decades at a stretch and today in the 21st century still drawing the same amount you did when you began. Back then the amount was a part of luxury, today it is pittance.

So then what is it that still keeps the employee motivated to be a part of the organization. Several factors can be seen to be held responsible for such behaviour – primarily being the tendency to stay close to family and home. Infact this is applicable not just to people who lead 3 decades of their lives associated with one company. Ask anybody and they would be trying to work out alternatives of getting the closest they can to home and taking care of aging parents/family. This may involve lots of tumultuous initial years of picking the right Organization, meanwhile justifying with qualifications, getting satisfied with salary benefits and also staying ahead or atleast in par with ever competing batchmates.

What I can comprehend as being another reason to such a behavioural aspect is – staying put at one place for ages may eventually kill the desire to learn new roles, experience new environment and yearning for more. So people, who have set into the system of monotonous defined task mode, continue going about it without further thought of improvement.

These employees now have a matured family, with kids grown up and most of them already begin to earn their own livelihood. This is the third factor I can see ingratiated in employees. Now that the nest (home) is more or less empty it hardly matters to them what is filling in their pockets.

Besides the inability of the Organization to better its pay structure over the years, despite highs and lows in their operations, workforce; makes employees believe that nothing better can happen in the times to come. So after coming to terms and accepting the organization as it is, there is still an interesting fact that works behind the scenes. Each individual knows the other all too well. Most of them live as neighbours in common societies and for any pain they have as a burden or for any joy to share there are 800 other individuals waiting to be a part of it. And in most cases after a certain stage of life, all that man wants from work, colleagues and employers is recognition, understanding and togetherness.