Homogenization: Good for Milk, Bad for Managing Workers

Readers of my blog know that I developed and launched a massive open online course (MOOC) on Preparing to Manage Human Resources. Readers of my blog also know that I think work is quite complex. It shouldn’t be reduced to being just about money, or just about satisfaction, or just about any other single thing. Put these two things together and a major theme of my MOOC is for managers to understand the different possibilities why people work so that they can better determine what drives their own workers. These drivers might not be the same for everyone, and might not be the same as the manager’s own views on work.

Many of the postings by learners in my MOOC reinforce the need for managers to observe rather than assume and to allow for person-to-person differences. In these postings, note how each author is painting workers with a broad brush to homogenize them to all be working for the same reason. And the aspect of work assumed to be universally important is the one that individually important to him or her.

“Money is key driving motivation of employee's performance. It was and stays a primary crucial factor in choosing a job.”

“I think that a large majority of the population works for money. Can we blame them, our society has made it that way.”

“Most people work out of the personal satisfaction and the joy of doing what makes them happy and love doing it day after day. I believe that when you work out of joy and regardless of the remuneration, its bring some sort of inner peace to you, your heart also feel at rest and you are really happy at all times.”

Not all of these postings assert that money is the key driver, but all of them homogenize and universalize the meaning of work and therefore key motivational factors. This is not a good strategy for managers to adopt. Managers must recognize that people are different so work might have different meanings, and might be very different from the manager’s own view(s) of work. Moreover, work is complex so each individual might have multiple feelings about work. For some, work might be about money and satisfaction and accomplishment and contributing to society, as just one example of combinations of diverse factors.

Academic research can help managers understand the possibilities (for example, watch my animation), but it’s a manager’s job to figure out what makes each employee tick. Which unfortunately makes managing people hard work (and thus associated with its own meanings of work!). I will close with a final posting excerpt that reflects one of the key take-aways from my MOOC:

“The job of a manager in the workplace is to get things done through employees. To do this manager should be able to motivate employees. Motivation practice and theory are very difficult and diverse subjects. It's easier said than done. To understand motivation one must understand human nature itself. And there lies the problem. Human nature can be very simple, but also very complex.”

The Value of Employee Voice

I write this from 30,994 feet over the North Atlantic on the way back from London where I had the pleasure of participating in the Voice and Value 2012 conference at the London School of Economics. This engaging conference brought together academics, human resources professionals, and trade unionists who believe in the importance of employee voice and share an interest in the role of employee voice in promoting not only workers' goals, but also organizational goals. This year's focus was therefore on voice and employee engagement. My presentation outlined the implications for engagement and voice that flow from the conceptualizations of work that I developed in my book, The Thought of Work. In return, I thoroughly enjoyed hearing HR professionals from several companies describe how formal voice arrangements in their organizations foster employee engagement.

The global technology consulting company Capgemini, for example, has a collective consultation unit called a "Forum" for each of its major business units in the UK. Where there is significant union membership, there are union seats in the Forum, and the rest of the seats are nonunion. The Forums, in turn, feed into a UK-level works council, which in turn feeds into an international works council. It is common for unionists to see nonunion consultation mechanisms and works councils as hollow exercises, and common for managers to see these bodies as unnecessary obstacles to effective decision-making. And yet the Capgemini experience seemingly disproves both views. There are examples where the works council has been able to exercise power, for example, by walking out and thus forcing corporate leaders to engage in more meaningful consultation. At the same time, the corporate leaders have come to see the value that the Forums and works councils can provide because the joint solutions that are reached have been better than the plans that the executives wanted to unilaterally implement before consulting with these bodies. And many at Capgemini apparently believe that the success of these voice mechanisms further enriches their efforts to achieve high levels of employee engagement. Yes, even at a technology consulting company with many professional employees.

Admittedly, these efforts face significant challenges. Representatives must be trained and supported. Representatives and managers must take time away from what's typically considered their "real jobs." There are meeting expenses, and delays in decision-making. There are risks to employees if works councils are manipulated by managers, and risks to managers if works councils become stepping stones to unionization. But as the presentations at the Voice and Value conference attest, they can be richly beneficial for companies and their employees where everyone is willing to put in the work necessary. Except in many sectors of the United States economy where they are illegal.