Ben at the High Street shop: Ben has worked the till at Lena's High Street shop for three years. He has not become lazy, but something about the job has taken his will to work well away.
Ben, before
- He used to arrive early.
- He learned the regulars' orders.
- He fixed the bread display without being asked.
Ben, this year
- He arrives at 7:10 for a 7:00 start.
- He has called in sick six times.
- He does exactly what the job needs and nothing more.
When staff lose the will to work well, they are demotivated. The effort drops to the minimum, mistakes creep in, and the best people start to look elsewhere.
Demotivation always has causes, and most of them sit inside the business, where a manager can reach them. They fall into three groups: the deal the staff get, the job they do, and the way they are managed.
The deal
- Poor pay: less than the same job pays elsewhere
- Poor conditions: a cold shop, broken equipment, no proper break room
- Job insecurity: fear that the job, or the shop, may soon go
- Unfairness: the same work, but some people get better shifts or more pay
The job
- Boring work: the same small task all day, every day
- No chance to grow: nothing new to learn and no way up
- No say: changes are decided and announced, never discussed
The management
- No recognition: good work goes unnoticed and unthanked
- Poor management: rotas changed at the last minute, criticism in front of customers
- Poor communication: staff hear the news last, or as a rumour
Three causes in Ben's job
- Boring work. Ben's till job has been the same for three years.
- No recognition. Nobody thanked him for the Saturday he covered alone.
- Job insecurity. He heard from a customer, not from Lena, that the High Street lease ends next year.
One cause rarely comes alone: Any one of these he could live with. Together they add up, so look for every cause, not just the first one you find.
| What demotivates | At the High Street shop | The earlier idea it breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Poor pay or conditions | The Goldcrust bakery two doors down pays $1 an hour more; the shop is cold in winter | A hygiene factor is missing, so staff are dissatisfied (Herzberg, 2.4.2) |
| Job insecurity | The rumour that the lease ends and the shop will close | Safety needs are not met (Maslow, 2.4.1) |
| Boring work | The same till job, every shift, for three years | The work itself, a motivator, is missing (Herzberg, 2.4.2) |
| No recognition | Nobody says thank you for the busy Saturdays | Esteem needs are not met (Maslow, 2.4.1) |
| No say | New opening hours were announced on a notice, with no one asked | No responsibility: the opposite of empowerment (2.4.3) |
| Poor management | The rota for next week is pinned up on Sunday night | Supervision and company policy, both hygiene factors, go wrong (Herzberg, 2.4.2) |
Read the table from right to left and it becomes a checklist. Every idea you met about what motivates people also tells you what demotivates them when it is missing.
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Lena does not see Ben's face every morning. She runs three shops and a bakehouse, so she sees numbers. Put the High Street shop beside the other two and the numbers tell her where to look.
| This year | High Street shop | Market Square and Park Road | What it may mean |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days off sick, per person | 9 | 3 | Staff avoiding a job they have stopped caring about (absenteeism) |
| Late starts, per month | 14 | 4 | Little reason to be there on time |
| Staff who left or gave notice | 1 of 4 | 0 of 6 | Labour turnover starting to rise (2.1.6) |
| Customer complaints, per month | 11 | 3 | Slow or unfriendly service at the counter |
| Till errors, per month | 20 | 6 | Less care over the work |
A sign points; it does not explain: Staff being absent from work (absenteeism), lateness, staff leaving, complaints and mistakes all say that something is wrong, and where.
None of them says why. Nine sick days could be boredom, a bad back or a manager nobody likes. To find the cause, Lena has to ask.
So Lena sends every one of her 20 employees a short questionnaire about how they feel at work (an employee survey). It has no names on it (anonymous), so people can be honest. It asks five questions, each with three answers to tick. Eleven of the twenty send it back.
| Question (11 replies) | Happy | Acceptable | Unhappy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your pay | 2 | 6 | 3 |
| Your hours of work | 3 | 6 | 2 |
| Is your work interesting? | 1 | 3 | 7 |
| Are you thanked for good work? | 1 | 2 | 8 |
| Do you have a say in how things are done? | 1 | 3 | 7 |
Four checks before you trust a survey
Who answered?
The share of people asked who replied is the response rate: 11 of 20 is 55%. Nine staff said nothing, and the unhappiest may be among them, or the happiest.
What was asked?
Five questions is quick to answer, but it misses a lot: nothing on job security, the managers or the working conditions.
How could people answer?
Three boxes to tick and no space to write. Lena learns that people are unhappy, not why.
What can it not show?
No names means no shop either, so Lena cannot tell whether the unhappy answers come from High Street, where the signs pointed.
Even with those limits, the results say something clear. Pay and hours are mostly acceptable: only 3 and 2 of 11 are unhappy. Recognition, interesting work and a say are not: 8, 7 and 7 of 11 are unhappy.
The problem is less the deal the staff get, and more the job and the way it is managed.
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Lena's first idea: Lena's first thought is a pay rise for the High Street staff: $1 an hour more, to match Goldcrust. Marco points at the survey.
The pay rise
- $1 an hour more, to match Goldcrust.
- Four people working about 1,800 hours a year.
- That is about $7,200 a year.
What the survey says
- Only 3 of 11 are unhappy with pay.
- 8 of 11 say nobody thanks them.
A pay rise answers the smaller complaint and leaves the bigger ones where they are.
That is the rule for responding to demotivation: find the cause first, then choose a fix that matches it. A fix aimed at the wrong cause costs money and changes nothing.
| The cause | A response that fits | What it draws on |
|---|---|---|
| Boring work | Move staff between the till, the bread display and the weekly ordering | Job rotation, enlargement or enrichment (2.4.3) |
| No recognition | Thank people by name at the Monday team talk; tell Lena about good weeks | Recognition, a non-financial reward (2.4.3) |
| No say | Ask the counter staff before changing the opening hours; let them plan the display | Empowerment and teamwork (2.4.3) |
| Poor pay | Compare pay with Goldcrust's and other local shops, and close the gap | Financial rewards (2.4.3) |
| Job insecurity | Tell staff the facts about the lease before the rumours do | Communication from the managers |
| Unfairness | Share the weekend shifts in turn, by a rule everyone can see | Fair rotas and clear policies |
| Poor management | Train the manager to plan the rota two weeks ahead | Training (2.1.3) |
A pay rise does not cure a boring job: If staff say the work is dull, more money leaves the work exactly as dull. It may stop some people leaving for a while, but it does not bring back the will to do the job well.
When pay is the answer: Pay is the right answer only when pay is the cause: when the survey or the exit interviews say so, or when a rival pays more for the same job.
What Lena does, in four steps
Find the cause
The signs pointed to High Street; the survey pointed to recognition, dull work and no say, more than pay.
Match the fix
Aisha's four counter staff now rotate daily between the till, the display and ordering, and are thanked by name each Monday. They choose the new summer opening hours themselves.
Tell the staff
Lena shares the survey results with all 20 employees and says what she will change. A survey that is never answered teaches staff not to bother next time.
Measure again
Three months later she checks the same numbers. High Street's sick days and late starts are falling, and she repeats the survey in the spring.
The same four steps work in any business, from a bakery to a car factory: find the cause, match the fix, tell the staff, and measure again.
How this comes up: A case describes a business whose staff are unhappy, often with a table of results from an employee survey.
What you are asked
- Comment on the survey, for two marks.
- Explain one change to human resource management that would improve the staff's motivation, also for two. The case names what the staff complain about, such as a boring job.
The pattern for commenting on a survey
- Make one comment. Either on how the survey was done (the response rate, the number of questions, the answer choices, who was left out) or on what it shows.
- Prove it with a number. Take at least one figure from the table, the response rate included, that backs the comment.
- Keep it to the survey in the case. Say what it means for this business, not what surveys are in general.
The trap: a comment with no figure: "Staff are unhappy, so Lena should act" is a comment. "8 of 11 staff are unhappy with how they are thanked" is a comment proved from the table.
The table is there to be used. Quote a number, and make sure it is the number that supports what you said.
Comment on the employee survey carried out by Lena.
Model answer plan
See the answer broken into clear points, with guidance on how each point earns marks.