[ANNOUNCER]: Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.

[COBY]: Did we lose a patient?

[JAMES]: No, that’s just my lunch.

[COBY]: Hey, thanks for joining us. I’m Coby, he’s James. And we’re going to answer some questions posed to us by you, our faithful listeners.

[JAMES]: Yeah, so I just realized this is the first time that we’ve actually done a Q A this season. We, we’ve been on the practical, psychology and leadership tips, train, which is how we often get to sneak in some of the user, question, listener, questions. So yeah, this is going to be good. Looking forward to it.

[COBY]: Yeah, Yeah. I think it’s funny the last, you know, this was kind of like the last chance for us to kind of get in some of the ones that have kind of kind of come up that we’re like, yeah, it’s last episode

[JAMES]: of the season, we should probably try to answer some of these questions.

[COBY]: Yeah, a lot of the ones we have been answering with the leadership tips and some of the psychology ones or even some of the episodes that we did, were sparked by questions we did full episodes on. But yeah, this is the one we’re like, we got a few other ones that we could definitely dig into that are going to be, you know, helpful to do as old fashioned Q A. So last episode of the season we’re finally getting to people’s questions.

[JAMES]: Oh, well, better late than never. but yeah, I mean some of these are, you know, things that may have come up or they’ve come up in conversation or come up in podcast over the last few years. But shockingly, people don’t go back and listen to 300 hours of us talking, to find all of the information. So I think it’s time for some pointed recaps.

[COBY]: Yeah, no, and, and that’s fair. But like I say, but even though, yeah, these are things that we’ve talked about in, at some part before, whether it’s in our training or whether it’s through the podcast, these are still relevant things to talk about. So.

[JAMES]: Absolutely.

[COBY]: Yeah. So while we dig in, so the first question I’m going to pose to you, James. Okay. Okay. So why do employees become dissatisfied after taking a new job?

[JAMES]: Well, I can probably identify seven factors that play a role. but I mean, seriously though, they’re, they’re. The reason why people become dissatisfied so quickly after taking on a new role is often a mismatch in expectations Right, right. Very few people start out a new position angry. We start hopeful. Right. We, you’ve gotten a new. We’ve gotten a new job. We’ve got a new challenge, a new opportunity. There’s something about this position that sparked an interest in us to apply for it or to accept the job in the first place. I mean, that’s not always the case. Sometimes you’re in a situation where you need to find employment, you found employment, and this classifies as employment. And that’s all that I’m looking for at this moment. But I mean, by and large we typically are looking for roles that provide some sense of fulfillment or in some way are meeting our needs. the dissatisfaction sets in when the crushing reality of what the organization actually offers versus how it describes what it offers. the disconnect between those two and you know, those, those, I wouldn’t even call them false expectations because oftentimes they. The. I don’t believe that it is the normal case that recruiters or those who are involved in the recruitment process are intentionally setting people up for bait and switch. It does happen. I’m not saying that it doesn’t, but I don’t believe that’s the majority or that’s the norm. I believe typically where the disconnect happens is when, the difference between the rules that we have in place, our policies, our expectations, the, you know, all of the great things that we provide to people, if that’s never translated to the day to day, if that’s never actually put in place by managers, then it’s never going to be experienced by employees. So the way that you describe your roles or the jobs and all the great benefits that you have to offer in the recruitment process comes crashing down if managers don’t actually provide those things in reality in the workplace.

[COBY]: Yeah. So it is something that. It is this absolute misalignment of expectations. And, and sometimes it’s a matter of like there’s the official expectations for what we call like our seven by three rule. The seven, the, the seven factors and the three expectations that employees have about things like your policies and your wages and your safety and things like that are competitive, sufficient and equitable. I know we talked about that a number of times. I mean, I’ll put a link to an episode where we broke that down into great detail about job.

[JAMES]: One of the 47 episodes we’ve done where we’ve talked about the seven by three rule.

[COBY]: Yeah. So, but, but again, it is something that there is, there’s those official Expectations. But then there’s also like the small, little, like, you know, small E expectations where it’s like, you know, I expect this to be kind of like, fun, or I expect to. People are presenting to be nice. There’s lots of opportunities for growth or those kind of things like that too. And then they kind of get in there and it’s like, really there isn’t. And that’s. Or at least the stuff that could be there is not normalized. And I do think that there is a case sometimes that especially when, like, workforce challenges become really, like really prominent. And we’re seeing this in a lot of the regions that we’re working in, stuff like that, that workforce is a major issue. People can’t find enough staff or there’s a misalignment of skills and, job seekers and stuff like that. But there is this idea of like, trying to sell the labor market on the great perks of the job. But sometimes the companies do oversell the job. That does happen. and sometimes it’s a matter of like, you know, we see it with like, external recruiters. They’re kind of given a short list of notes, and this is the kind of stuff that the job has to go find people that would be interested in that. But then that’s not necessarily the, the reality. And their career doesn’t know better. They’re just going off what they’ve got to work with or, or whatever. But like, I think the thing that always pops to mind when we talk about kind of like this date and switches that sometimes happen or companies overselling on the job is this is a client that we worked with years ago. We talked about this, and sort of our training, for sure. But I, think we talked about it on the podcast before, but it was that large production company we work with and they were so. They, they were having major workforce. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was just that revolving door of town that they kept seeing. And so we went in and did one of our P3 assessments of policy progress and perception. And we kind of like, were like, often. We, we often find misalignment. That’s often why we’re brought in.

[JAMES]: That’s the point of the, assessment.

[COBY]: Yeah, but we were like, shocked with the, like, how far apart the misalignment was, when we did this, because, like, I remember, the things that always that came up were there were a lot of stuff around their policies. So when we did the policy part of the assessment, we found that the policies that were utilized that were Part of the practice in the. Every day were really geared to protect the company from the employees. Like it was like the employees knew about the things like discipline, policies and limitations to time off and consequences around lateness and equipment, misuse and those kind of things. Like those really punitive, necessary. But the more punitive structure policies everybody knew about. But there were good policies in there to support wellness and there were there’s a support.

[JAMES]: So a little bit of context. it was a local plant of a large corporate entity.

[COBY]: Right.

[JAMES]: So the, the corporate structure had some really well designed policies, some really well designed frameworks, had actually given some thought and consideration to you know, employee well being at work. Not only the, the punitive piece, but what, what ended up happening. And what we found is that those benefits were never really articulated or if they were articulated, they were in the employee manual that employees got on their first day and never referenced again. They never actually translated to how managers managed and provided things to their employees. Because the only thing that mattered on the floor in the local plant was the more punitive things that you were talking about. People, everybody knew what would happen to you if you were late two times, three times. Right. The punitive aspects which you’re right, they have to, we have to have rules around how. What is appropriate and what is not appropriate behavior in the workplace. But if that’s the only thing that you ever tell people, which it was in this case, they thought it’s the only thing that actually mattered or it’s the only thing that actually existed.

[COBY]: Well, and, and it created this like, like on day one, there is a line between managers and staff. It is us versus them that the policies are there to protect the company from all the terrible things we as employees are going to do. And that’s what they’re watching out for. And that was a.

[JAMES]: And long term staff were jaded. Not everyone, but generalized. It was. So you had a new person come in and they had a mentoring. the corporate structure had this really great mentoring program that was designed to help new employees to get up to speed and provide experienced employees with an opportunity to share knowledge and provide training. And there were benefits associated with it. But what it became was a senior employee going, all right, here’s all the ways that you need to hide what you’re doing, from your manager.

[COBY]: Yeah, basically. Yeah. And again. And this is why we built our, our P3 assessment to look at policy, practice and perception. Because the policies, when we reviewed them were Quite strong. Yes. There was clear policies that were punitive, but there were a lot of policies that were support and a lot of ones that allow for career growth. And this and this and this and this. The policies, written on paper were good. We were happy with those and we thought the company should be proud of them. M. The practice of how they were used was they were very much cherry picked. And the ones that were again protecting the company from employees were the ones that were used in practice the most. And the perception was that’s all that there is. There is just these landmines you have to watch out for. So you have to hide what you’re doing if it’s not perfectly in line. Which brings me to the next thing that we found was that the expert, the assumption was you can get fired so easily. There was zero job security. And that was, that was what everyone was taught on their first day by their mentor was if you, if you’re late twice, you’re out the door. I mean. Yeah. During things like your probationary seasons and that.

[JAMES]: That has happened. Like it wasn’t completely unfounded.

[COBY]: No probationary periods. That’s kind of the, the idea. But the thing is that, but again the policies as written were not that the case. There was a fairly lengthy and robust, progressive discipline policy. There were things around like, around like improvement plans and there were all these other things that were in there again after you passed off or after you finished your probation. But that was not again the perception that existed at the plant. So one of the things that was really common was like some of the, some of the advice that people got in their first week was start job searching now because you could be let go at any moment in time. And if you don’t want to you know, if you don’t want to be without a job, then you’re going to need to be constantly job searching while you’re here because you could be let go at a moment’s notice. I mean it was a perfect storm of a lot of some really good policies, some really bad practice mixed in with some M. With a lot of mismatch in expectations, created like the, the turnover there was significantly higher than their corporate benchmark.

[COBY]: Yeah. Yeah.

[JAMES]: And they were, I mean this was in a, in a rural area that does not have an unlimited labor supply. So the company had already built a reputation, in the labor market around basically being a terrible place to work. Yeah. And fighting against that narrative, once it’s common, once it’s out There once it has reach the, the point of, you know, word of mouth warning your friends, don’t work there, or if you’re going to work there, realize that you need a backup plan almost immediately. It was causing them significant, significant challenges.

[COBY]: Well, and what’s really funny was like there were terminations, there were employees that

[JAMES]: were like, oh yeah, there always is.

[COBY]: No but. And, and that was common. But the you can be let go at a moment’s notice was fed by the fact that people were job searching after their first week and were leaving for other jobs. So they kept seeing people leaving, assuming that was this. So it was always like the termination thing. Again, it’s almost like a self fulfilling prophecy in a lot of ways. Right. But this was what kind of came down to this was there was a lot of bait and switch hiring too because during the recruitment phase when they would go to the colleges and they would go to the high schools and they would, they would have access to

[JAMES]: go to job fairs and all the rest. Yeah.

[COBY]: And they would talk to like, you know, new residents to the area or people that weren’t, that didn’t, that you know, didn’t really know about the company’s reputation. or like that they would promote the corporate’s benefits and corporate resources and the idea that this is a place for growth. And like they’d use a lot of the corporate talking points for a company that was a good employer as a corporation. But this one plant would, you know, would talk about that, you know, in the job fairs. But then, then, so the people will come and then there will be this full on bait and switch. Well, you’re here, your mentor’s telling you to. Here’s how to hide from your, from your boss and have a backup plan on day one. And you know, you know, so I mean and, and plus also the job, it was a factory, so it was hot and it was physically demanding and it was loud and all of the kinds of doing those were not presented as part of this too. So there was this.

[JAMES]: They m. Weren’t presented as realities in the recruitment process. So you mix in all the rest of what we’ve talked about with also a lack of preparedness for what the realities of a manufacturing floor actually looks like.

[COBY]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, and then, yeah, you say like I said before, you have this perfect storm of this never ending revolving door of employees in a labor market that cannot support a. Ah, never ending revolving door. Right.

[JAMES]: Yeah.

[COBY]: So yeah, it was. Yeah. And like, like the, the report was, was Our report was like, was like stark and direct. But the problem was is that the, you know, I wish this was. That there was a happy ending to the story. But when we gave the report to the plant leadership, they thought that, that the problems were resolvable and that they weren’t. It weren’t their fault and they were. They really just blamed the labor market

[JAMES]: and, nobody wants to work anymore.

[COBY]: Yeah, so. Yeah, so. So, I mean, we haven’t. It was years ago. They work with them, they’re still around. So I imagine they must have done some things for solutions. But we didn’t continue working with them after the report. just because they didn’t want to. They want to bury their heads in the sand.

[JAMES]: well, they, they wanted, they wanted somebody to reinforce that what they’re doing is correct and that other people are the problem. Wasn’t the nature of what we did. yeah, we have this terrible habit of, in our view, telling people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. I’ll make the same comparison that I often make in that we have to start thinking about the labor market in a similar way in which we think about the consumer market. If we, if all of our marketing language in the consumer market when we are selling our product or service is pumping this up into something that’s unsustainable or that the reality is different from what our customers will actually expect, that’s going to damage our reputation. The same is true in the labor market. And that’s what we’ve seen is this mismatch in expectations sometimes can be, unintentional. Sometimes it’s a, well, we need bums and seats. And my job is to talk up the company, so I’m going to talk up the company. Yeah, it is. But you’re not actually preparing people for the realities of what their work will look like. If you’re doing that.

[COBY]: Yeah. And if you’re experiencing workforce challenges, realizing your employer brand and your. And your value proposition and your, and. And your proof, like your ev. Proof. As Becky from, Keto Creative, one of our partners, talks about all the time in her podcast in her work, you know, the idea of, you know, if you are positioning yourself as being a good employer and a place people that can come and stay long term, that has to be transparent. That can’t be marketing hype. That’s got to be real. Because, I mean, because again, work like recruiting is, is. Is time consuming, it’s risky, it’s expensive. So to do all of that Just to turn around and have people like be. Be looking for jobs the next day because of the practices of your workplace and the perception of your staff. That’s. It is a solvable problem, but it is something that is not a quick fix. It’s something that is often systemic and needs to be handled very carefully. And you need to have professionals to help you walk you through it because usually you can’t see the forest of the trees when you’re experiencing that in your own workplace.

[COBY]: Cool. Let’s move on to the next question.

[JAMES]: All right, here’s we haven’t talked about this for a while, but we, Why doesn’t employee recognition always work?

[COBY]: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have talk about this. If you have other podcasts and we have content and that, you know, that we dig into this a fair amount. But largely one of the things that we see when people are talking about or asking about employee recognition and recognition programs and everything else like that too, is that there is an expectation of, of what employee recognition is. And it’s usually something that kind of falls into a few buckets of like, you know, like a ongoing like leaderboard, award piece that happens at the end of a quarter or end of a year or it’s like, some type of like, grand gesture, thank you piece or it’s positive emails that kind of go out. Usually it’s very mass produced and it’s usually very. Everybody gets the same thing and everything else like that too. And the reason why that often falls flat in a lot of organizations, or actually I shouldn’t say falls flat, why it only actually resonates with a minority of your staff team, which is the reality is because you are trying to give everybody the same level of recognition despite the fact that people have recognition preferences. There’s a psychology behind recognition and appreciation and everything else that too. And if you are saying, well, this one way that’s easy for us to show recognition, like end, of the year party, rent of quarter, award ceremony, or whatever it is, this is an easy thing for us to do. So this, this is recognition. So we’re checking that box. Everybody gets the same thing, and then that should be enough. That is a flawed, thought process because again, the idea of personal preferences and personal signs and, and meaning attached to recognition and appreciation tells us that what will work for one person may not, may fall on deaf ears to another person because we are complex humans.

[JAMES]: And, and there’s a few, there’s a few pieces at play as well, because we’re taught like if we think about the point of record of work, of recognition at work, the intent behind any program should be to let. It should be to recognize the individual efforts or team efforts that contribute to the overall success of the organization. Right. It’s a, it’s a way of saying essentially it’s a way of saying thank you. It’s a way of saying we see you, we appreciate you, thank you. The place where recognition is most valuable and most meaningful is at the manager level. And the, the error that I see so often is that the forms of recognition or recognition programs live at the corporate level. Right. They, we, we seek, we seek to do the same thing for everybody because we want to be, we think of it as equitable, but I mean we won’t get into the distinction between being equal and being equitable right now. But that’s, that’s often the intent behind it is, you know, we, we want to make sure that everybody has the same access to the same program, to the same recognition so that we will never be accused of playing favorites or, you know, whatever. Yeah. And that doesn’t really work for human beings who are messy, complex creatures who all have individual preferences about how like the way that I m. Receive what is meaningful to me in terms of a good job, pat on the back.

[JAMES]: Corporate thank you is not going to be the same thing that’s meaningful to Coby.

[COBY]: Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, so. Well actually let’s talk a little bit about one of our, one of our cornerstone programs that we use with a lot of our, with a lot of our corporate clients is so we have a program that we call sevenfold, Sevenfold recognition. So in which is about the seven methods, methods of recognition and the way that we often describe it when we’re first explaining it to folks because it’s a very different, like it’s a whole different approach to recognition than what everyone else is used to. But it’s, we kind of compare it to corporate love languages. So if you’re familiar with like love languages and kind of like, you know, personal relationships, this is, this has a similar feel to it. It’s based on, based on a very similar psychology. but it’s about, specifically about recognition in the workplace. So we say that there are seven methods. So why called sevenfold? So they’re encouraging feedback where you provide like the actual verbal response to people like good job, well done. There’s meaningful efforts where you do something that nice and like friendly towards someone. Like running an errand for them or bringing them a cup of coffee or getting a stapler for them when you’re going off to the supply room or whatever. There’s concrete symbols which are like the ideas of like an award or a trophy or you know, something else like that. There’s undivided attention where you are giving someone your full focus view. You’re not on your phone while they’re talking to you. You’re looking at them, kind of giving them. You’re very present in the moment while you’re engaging with them. There’s personal connections where you build a bit of a rapport and a familiarity. And with your co workers. There’s professional independence where you give them a level of autonomy. You can trust their judgment. You allow. You’re not monitoring their work, you’re actually building off their, off their, off their professional judgment that you already appreciate. And then there’s skill mastery where you are both appreciating the skills that they bring and you’re using the skills that someone has. But you’re also investing in further development of those skills. So those seven methods are ways that we can actually make. We can actually like operationalize recognition in our everyday. Amongst staff to staff and staff to manager. Both are really impactful. But staff to manager tends to be where you have the highest ROI on your effort because just the nature of the dynamic of employees and employers. But we say the reason why a lot of recognition programs don’t work is because they tend to rely on concrete symbols and encouraging feedback to do all the heavy lifting for all the different people. Ignoring five other valid and important parts of recognition that many employees view as far more important than the concrete symbols and the encouraging feedback.

[JAMES]: Yeah. And also that disconnect like it really for recognition to be most impactful, it needs to be it really needs to come from the direct manager supervisor. Right. That, that is how if it comes from the company and not from the manager, if the manager’s actions don’t align with what the company is promoting, if it feels fake and forced and insincere. Right. It needs to be, it needs to be timely. This is why we, we often complain or rail against the annual barbecue or award ceremony type of mentality. I mean it’s not that those in and of themselves are inherently wrong or bad. It’s that you’re waiting to recognize, recognize somebody for the work that they’ve done. It could be six months after the event and then are you really actually recognizing their efforts or are you just using it as a platform to talk yourself up? it needs to be authentic. It needs to actually be a sincere effort to recognize somebody for their contributions and it needs to be done in a way that they appreciate, that they connect with, that they resonate with and that is actually meaningful to them. Because if not, then. Well, I mean if we, if we make, if we boil this down to a very simplistic view. Recognition, is a form of communication. And if you are not communicating in the way that you’re audience that your recipient needs you to like, if you’re not communicating in a way that they need, in their, in a way that they understand and appreciate, your communication is going to fall flat. I don’t care if we’re talking about marketing, communications, internal, communications, recognition as communication or in your personal life, communication. The, the primary premise remains the same.

[COBY]: Yeah, yeah. And so the thing to really know about. Yes, so you’re right, all recognition has to be timely, authentic and appreciable. But the thing is, that’s also really important to know is that like I said, these seven methods of recognition are preferences. And you have a ranked order that is unique to you of how important all these seven are. What’s the most important, what’s going to have the biggest impact and what’s least important is going to have the least, least impact. And it’s funny we, when we actually. So we actually have a psychometric that we go into and we can, we can run through an entire organization, assess everyone for their further preferences and actually we’ve got workshops and training and everything like that. And we’ve done big company wide initiatives and we’ve done small team ones. But whenever we talk about this I always tell the same story of years, ago, long before we developed this actually was one of the catalysts for us developing this before Roman 3 was I worked for I had a boss, a new boss that came in. She was very direct, she was very kind. But her and I did not get along very well because I was running projects in a, in a remote office. And I have an, I have a very high opinion of my own work ethic and the quality.

[JAMES]: Shocking.

[COBY]: I know it’s, it’s really hard to

[JAMES]: believe that either one of us would have egos.

[COBY]: And and again I knew my stuff and I, you know, and I don’t need anyone looking over me. But I also have a very low appreciation for encouraging feedback. You don’t need to tell me I did a Good job. I know I did a good job. Okay. That’s never been.

[JAMES]: So, I’m not the only arrogant one on this team. Just so that list. So that, you know.

[COBY]: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don’t. I don’t hide it. I just. I just don’t wear it as proudly as you do.

[JAMES]: I guess that’s. That’s fair.

[COBY]: But. Yeah, no, but seriously, like, like, like, I put a lot of work into what I do, so I don’t need validation from other people to know that. That my work is good because I’m proud of it. And, I work quickly and everything else like that too. So when my. So when I was doing something, I was delivering great results, and we had great growth and momentum with the projects that I was running. And my boss, as good as she was, was constantly telling me, good job. You did great. This is great. I’m very impressed by this. And the thing was, is that that meant nothing to me. And, Because what I really valued was I valued skill mastery. I valued using my skills more. So if I’m nailing this here, give me more influence, give me more abilities to use my skills, like, invest more so I can deliver more. Like, that’s just how I’m wired. And the thing was that. So I would ask to take on more stuff and. Or ask to kind of take on more projects or consult on more things. And she would often say no, partially because she was really happy with the work that I did and didn’t feel like she wanted to water down the quality of my work by giving me too much work to work on. She didn’t want to burn me out, but I wanted. But that’s really what I wanted. And this was. And so her and I ended up kind of butting heads because I was not very. I was not very receptive to her kind words or to her saying no to using my skills. And I was. I was giving her kind of like a cold shoulder as she was trying to be very supportive of me. I was not, receiving it. And one of my co workers who was like, who was the second in command of my project, pulled me aside one day, and she’s like, what are you doing? Why are you intentionally pissing off our new boss? And. And again, like, this was a big aha, moment for me. So I ended up calling out my boss and kind of like, we had a very friend conversation. I said, listen, I understand that you tell me good news, a good job, and. And you thank me for the work, but I Guess that doesn’t really carry much weight with me. I don’t. I don’t need that. And I. I don’t. And that doesn’t make me feel appreciated. What I. When I ask for more responsibility or ask to do, to jump into new projects, that’s. That’s what I. That’s. To me, that’s what you appreciate my work and my skills looks like. And, you know, I came to realize she was really authentically doing all that she could in the way that she knew how to show recognition.

[JAMES]: Yeah.

[COBY]: and I. It was just not translating to me like, it. It really was not just something that I. We were on two different wavelengths. But then, but eventually she. She realized what I needed. I realized where she’s coming from, and we actually mended this and became a very strong team after that. Her and I built this incredible relationship because. And she was always behind me and my team and her work significantly increased after that because I knew that she had my back. Even though we were, you know, even though she had to, like, almost like, consciously try to, like, not just talk to me in the way that she understood recognition. And I needed to just not hear recognition in the way that I wanted to hear it.

[JAMES]: And that’s. That story really was the catalyst as we were developing some of this ip. the appreciable piece can’t really be understated. That’s where the strength of the profiles come into play. because she. Authentic, like, she was being authentic and timely in her feedback, and she sincerely wanted to. You to recognize or wanted to recognize you for the work that you were doing.

[COBY]: Right.

[JAMES]: Your own stubbornness was getting in the way. but like, yeah, there were. It was a miscommunication on both sides that led to a lot of frustration. And once that miscommunication was cleared up, the relationship was mended. That same model we have seen play out time and time again as we’ve used these tools with other organizations.

[COBY]: Yeah. What is really great and I. I absolutely love seeing it. When I see someone, whether it’s a manager, whether it’s a co worker have the same aha. Moment that I had, it’s just like, there’s. It’s. It’s almost transcendent to just kind of see someone just like, oh, my God, all this time, you know, this is what’s been going on.

[JAMES]: Well, I mean, you still talk about this manager as one of the best, relationships you’ve had, professionally in the workplace.

[ANNOUNCER]: Right.

[COBY]: Like, it’s clearly, Clearly I’m not Easy to, have work for you. So. No, but. Yeah, but again, like, this was something that once we were able to overcome this and we realized and the alignment was kind of clear, and we started communicating in a way that was appreciable, everything changed, and the work that we did was incredible. And. Yeah. And she still, to this day, is probably my favorite boss.

[JAMES]: Yeah.

[COBY]: Excellent. So, yeah. So I do think that that’s why recognition programs often fail. Is a matter of we lean too heavily on recognition. Actions that are

[JAMES]: easily quantifiable.

[COBY]: Yeah.

[JAMES]: That are box to check.

[COBY]: Right. Whereas we don’t incorporate, we don’t operationalize recognition into the daily interactions between coworkers and between, staff and their managers. And that’s why the stuff that’s worked with is very transactional and very surface level, where the real meat and the real meaning kind of comes from human connection and daily interactions. Yeah.

[JAMES]: Good.

[COBY]: Cool. So let’s move on to the last question. One to you. This is one that I think we need to make sure we don’t go too long on as well. yeah.

[JAMES]: Ah. Because we didn’t just do that with the last two.

[COBY]: So does everyone need purpose at work?

[JAMES]: yes.

[COBY]: Okay.

[JAMES]: The end. All right.

[COBY]: Yeah.

[JAMES]: Well, I mean. Okay, so I understand the intent behind the question, and, you know, my sarcastic or cheeky answer aside, it’s actually true. so reading the intent of the question is how do we get people to connect to our purpose? It’s typically how, questions around purpose at work get framed is how do we get people to buy in? How do we get people to see what we’re trying to do and feel connected to the vision and the purpose of the organization? And that will work for a small number of people. I mean, kind of. Let’s build off the conversation we just came off of. Right. what? The way that we approach purpose and motivation is not from m a standpoint of everybody needs to connect to my vision of what meaningful work is, rather, that we need to understand what motivates people on an individual basis and make sure that we are communicating it in that way. So we talk about this in terms of these. You know, we talk. We call it the eight sparks of purpose. because there are different ways in which people are motivated. And it’s not that one motivation is right and one motivation is wrong. It’s that. But if you want to be able to ignite motivation and sustain motivation in your employees, then you need to understand what actually motivates them. So we talk about this in terms of you know, the, the idea that there’s people who are motivated by the the desire to accumulate things, whether that’s the accumulation of money, of status, of power, of freedom, whatever. Right. They’re, they’re really looking to acquire and connect and tapping into that ability. That motivation will be much more meaningful for that person than it is for somebody who for instance, is motivated by the desire to, you know, be a part of something. And that be a part of something is often the, the one way that we tend to talk about purpose at work as here is a grand lofty goal that we are all that the organization is attempting to achieve. Let’s all get on board and work towards this. Ok? Yes. That will motivate some people.

[COBY]: The way that I hear this question is I hear it as somebody who maybe has a business that is not making a difference. Or has a grand purpose or a grand, you know, like mission that they’re trying to achieve.

[JAMES]: You’re not out to solve all of societal ills.

[COBY]: Right. You just, you have a very simple functional business that you just create a widget or whatever it is. So I think I always take this

[JAMES]: question as it has value, but how do you connect?

[COBY]: But, but the idea of it is that if I don’t have this grand, you know, mission, can, you know, then can am I not able to tap into someone’s sense of purpose and motivation? And, and we say no, absolutely not. Just because. Wait, no, we say that you absolutely can. I forget where, how I phrase that question. So regardless of what your mission is, you can still tap into purpose is what I’m trying to say. because just like we talked about with recognition, there is personal preferences and personal connections to different types of motivation. So we talked about the spark to accumulate. There’s also the spark to provide, which is just a matter of those that want to work, to live. They are motivated by consistent, reliable work that allows them to bring home a stable income for their family. So that way they can find, you know, that way they can provide for them.

[JAMES]: And yes, that is a valid motivation that doesn’t need to be any more complicated than people will reliably be connected to the purpose to be able to provide for their family.

[COBY]: Yeah. Actually let me just quickly run through all, all eight of them just so that way we’re not.

[JAMES]: Okay, I’ll try not to interrupt you.

[COBY]: Okay, so the first one we talked about was the spark to provide, as we just mentioned, that’s the idea of just providing for your family and Providing a stable, reliable income. The spark to accumulate, which is what you also mentioned, which is about whether it’s about money, whether it’s about power, whether it’s about status, whether it’s about freedom, whatever it is, is it looking to acquire and collect things. The spark to be a part of something is idea that it’s more that inclusive belonging. The sense of, you know, belonging is a powerful motivator and you want to be almost like connected to other, connected to, to something that, that you can belong to. Then there’s the spark of loyalty to others which is about, about having people have your back and you have their back. It’s about the human connections that we make along the way. And it’s, it’s the kind of job where you show up for your co workers or you show up because you like your boss, not necessarily because the work’s overly exciting or anything else like that too. It’s, it’s about that, that either that employee experience or that or that camaraderie. then there’s a spark to achieve which is where you want to accomplish some things and succeed yourself and, and kind of move along your personal goals. Then there’s a spark to stay relevant where you want to actually, you know, maintain your usefulness, utilize your skill set. This is, we often see this with like people that are like close retirement or have retired. They want to you know, be able to kind of still contribute to kind of like the working world and still feel that, that they have a, a role to play kind of in society. Then there’s the spark to make a difference which we were talking about before. Whether it’s the big picture, change the world kind of motivator. And then there’s the spark to improve yourself. It’s about self development, pushing yourself forward. and it’s about, about learning about yourself and trying to make sure that you’re kind of like pushing the, the, the skills that you want to see in yourself, or you’re pushing those forward. So those eight sparks are different ways that people are motivated and they are different forms of motivation and they are the, they are different ways that you can actually help your employees find their connection and meaning in, in the work in your company.

[JAMES]: And one piece that I always end up, I, I keep going back to the same story and really what I want to communicate is that if you are not tapping into your, the, an individual’s sense of purpose and motivation in the workplace, then they will find a way to fill that motivation elsewhere. and that can be A problem or a challenge that you as an organization will need to overcome. So I. I’ve told the story before, that early in my career, when I, I started my career working as an educational assistant, in the school system while I was completing, my degree. And it was a very rewarding job in many ways. you know, it kind of tapped into that wanting to make a difference bit, you know, to. To be able to support students, who are struggling or are. Have barriers or disabilities or, and help them to, be successful was a rewarding motivator. especially early on. The problem for me was that what really motivates me and what I really wanted was the opportunity to achieve something, to build something, to do more than what I was currently doing. And one of my problems is as soon as something becomes routine for me, I need a new challenge. So for me, the way that this played out is that I found a new challenge not in the work, because the. The nature of the job did not provide me any opportunity to grow. I started at the. You know, there was no opportunity for me to go from an educational assistant to a. Into any other role, within the school, or. And even within the school board. Because that’s Was not how the system was structured. So I had to find my sense of achievement elsewhere. And it ended up being in unionized environments. And that’s how I got involved in labor, movement and got involved in all of these different. It ended up being beneficial, for Roman 3 and you know, down the road. Because I, you know, it gave me a much different perspective than I would have otherwise. But it was not beneficial for my employer.

[COBY]: Right.

[JAMES]: to have somebody who was very ambitious and needing to achieve something, not finding it at work and finding it in a avenue that was, completely counter to what the organization may have wanted.

[COBY]: Well, part of it was it pulled you away from your work.

[JAMES]: It pulled me away from my work. It put me into a. But I mean, I. I got involved in, local, labor movement and provincial labor movement and national labor movement because it gave me an opportunity to continue to push forward, to continue to feel like I was accomplishing something, that I was growing, that I was, you know, that next challenge was in front of me. I could see how putting in my time, energy and effort into the union, experience would give me that satisfaction of accomplishing something that I was not receiving in the workplace.

[COBY]: Right. Because, I mean, part of it was you. You. You’re heavily, affected by the spark to achieve, but also the spark to be a part of something was there’s a lot of, like, camaraderie in the whole, like, unionized piece. Also the spark to improve yourself. You’re constantly. You went through so many different trainings. You became a facilitator and a trainer. You trained other people on the stuff. And this was all stuff that typically happened during the working day that the union paid for you not to be there and. And the school had to figure out substitute substitutes for you. And you were like, probably on site.

[JAMES]: Oh, at the, at the height of my involvement, I probably missed at least half of the school year because of, you know, it. Whether it was internal labor relations, labor management committees, labor count councils, occupational councils, regional councils, then moving to, you know, a provincial format where I was able to create, you know, the first young workers Committee and the, you know, serve as part of the board and do all the training and become a trainer and then train the trainers. And then, you know, I got involved with the CLC and then I got involved with the national union. and it just, it. There was not a limit to what I could accomplish as long as I was willing to put in the energy and effort. And so I did. Yeah, because it filled that motivation for me. Work did not provide anything that allowed me to feel that same level of accomplishment. So if somebody is not getting what they need out of the workplace, they will find a way to fill that motivation outside of the workplace. And it can become. It’s not that it can become a major problem in that their work may or may not suffer. They may still continue to do their role. But are you actually utilizing people? Are, you’re hiring. You spend a lot of time hiring, qualify, trying to find qualified candidates, trying to bring people in who are going to add value to your organization. So why would you limit them? Why would you not tap into the motivations that are inherent within people? Why would you not provide some sort of mechanism for people to, grow and learn and connect and feel like they are accomplishing something and a part of something or accumulating something, or like it’s. It can be a transformation, formative exercise for the organization and for the individuals who. Once we’re able to tap into what, motivates somebody on a personal level, we can sustain that motivation.

[COBY]: Yeah, well, but part of it too is like, the thing is, is that you don’t know what someone’s. Again, preferences are. The things that spark their motivation are when they come in. Because if you are trying to push someone towards these great opportunities like what you had. But they’re really motivated by the spark to provide and loyalty to others. You’re almost pushing them to do more than what they’d ever want to do. They just want to come in and do their job. You have some work friends and go home. And so, so you’re.

[JAMES]: That should be perfectly acceptable.

[COBY]: But, but the idea is that if you don’t know, you’re kind of like walking around, you know, like in the dark, trying to, trying to figure it out. Which is why one of the things that we do with organizations is we, we again, we have, we have psychometrics around helping them go through the staffing and figure out where. What are the most prominent sparks in your workplace? What are the things that you should be actively, you know, investing into or put certain people towards? Or how does this impact with your workforce planning? How does this impact with your recruitment stuff? Because again, these things exist in people now. And if you don’t know what sparks their motivation, then you are a risk of either, you know, ignoring someone’s skill set, having them find, you know, pieces outside of work, or have them be, you know, not staying around a long time because they’re not challenged, they don’t find enough meaning and purpose in their work, or if you try to overcompensate, you can be pushing people that could be very happy just doing the job and going home into stuff that they don’t want to do and they leave for that reason. Right. So not knowing is a big problem that we’ve seen Companies that they can, they find a lot of value in just understanding the different preferences and even looking at how can we inventory those in our workplace so we know we can actually make plans that will actually reflect the data of our organization.

[JAMES]: If fundamentally it comes down to treating people as individuals and recognizing that people are individuals, yes, collectives, you can identify patterns, but the collective is still made up of individuals. Right. And if we take the time to collect that data, to understand the team that we have working with us and give some thought to, how can I even take steps towards helping them to find that spark within what they’re doing currently? Or are there opportunities for them to find that spark within the company in other ways? Ah, it can be, well, as you said, it can be transformative.

[COBY]: 100. All right. I think that pretty much answers that question. Is there anything else we wanted to jump into or, because, but I mean, we’re. This is the last episode of season four.

[JAMES]: We have End of season four.

[COBY]: Yeah, so we have.

[JAMES]: And you’re still listening to us.

[COBY]: Exactly. yeah, so we are definitely doing season five. Season five will be launching in, I, think, think mid. Yeah, like early, September, kind of two weeks after this episode. we are going to be adding something that we think might be helpful for folks. So we’re looking. We’re not going to see what that is right now, but we’re going to be. We want to, you know, say that we’re always trying.

[JAMES]: On the edge of your seat.

[COBY]: Yeah, we’re always trying to challenge ourselves with, with a podcast and see if we could help create more useful information and more useful, insights and tools. So, yeah, so look out for that for season five. So I want to thank everybody for following us through four seasons. hopefully you’re going to join us for season five. And, again, please feel free to keep sharing us your questions, requesting topics for us to talk about, or also if you just want more information on some of the things that we talk about, email us. We’d love talking to our listeners. We love talking to, other professionals in the sector just to learn about what’s going on. And, again, see if we can be part of the solution.

[JAMES]: And as you’ve probably noticed, we love talking.

[COBY]: Right. Okay, so that does it for us. For a full archive of the podcast and access to video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit Roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.

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