Editor's Note: Herzberg's theory of motivation, often referred to as the two-factor theory, holds that pay is a "hygiene factor," necessary to avoid dissatisfaction but not something that by itself will provide satisfaction. In today's Classic, Jim Brennan provides a memorable and important explanation of this phenomenon - one that so many of us in the field learn the hard way.
Pay can create leaks or make holes but it can't activate engagement
How to maintain low-cost engagement parties with small budgets seems to be the theme of the season. We are not talking about the formal premarital status of a couple intending to enter the state of matrimony but instead address the psychological term for a deep dedication to work. Employee engagementshows itself in a sense of personal emotional involvement and identification much like ownership.
Employee engagement is not something you can create. Engagement is an employee choice. Management can establish the conditions in which engagement can thrive but cannot command or dictate it. People have their own motivations. The best any employer can do is to offer a menu of reinforcements, reward systems, and consequences for positive organizational behaviors that are attractive to your particular workforce. Such factors as communications, empowerment, incentives, performance feedback and working relationships are called “drivers” because they are considered effective in enhancing employee engagement.
Pay is not generally considered a “driver” of employee engagement. Yes, the reward and remuneration process that encompasses recognition, communication and feedback is certainly an engagement vehicle, but the dollars, pounds and euros themselves are not “drivers.” I would go so far as to identify pay as a “leaker” that can deflate engagement but can’t directly increase it. Passion for an occupation and enthusiasm for a work role can’t be bought with money. But it can be quenched by pay cuts or starved by inadequate compensation. Workers who are financially challenged due to low wages find that intrinsic satisfaction won’t pay the rent or put food on the table. Once income rises to the hygiene level that removes it as a dissatisfier, the subject will perk up and become potentially open to responding positively to other reinforcement techniques that can activate employee engagement. Until remuneration is at least minimally acceptable to the employee, they are unlikely to become engaged in their work.
Since low pay or demotivational reward practices can turn engagement off, it is therefore important to pay people right. Decent salary is a necessary but insufficient precondition for engagement. That point should be emphasized, because enterprises face problems where pay lags or is delivered by a process seen as inequitable. They must first remedy those issues before they can ever dream of engaging their workers. Pay can’t float your boat, but cracks caused by negligent inattention can sink it. Once the leaks have been plugged, the boat can move across the waters towards its destination.
With this understanding, it may become clearer that employee engagement simply requires “enough” pay rather than immense compensation sums. The hard part of that challenge is determining when pay is sufficiently adequate to permit a supportive environment for engagement initiatives and finding the money to plug the gaps where they exist.
E. James (Jim) Brennan is an independent compensation advisor with extensive total rewards experience in most industries. After corporate HR posts and consulting CEO roles, he was Senior Associate of pay surveyor ERI before returning to consulting in 2015. A prolific writer (author of the Performance Management Workbook), speaker and frequent expert witness in reasonable executive compensation court cases, Jim also serves on the Advisory Board of the Compensation and Benefits Review.
Creative Commons photo "Drip" © 2011 J. Ronald Lee
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