“What People Want”
by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist
Managers of every type of business run into the same question regarding workplace satisfaction: “What do employees want?”
The answer, according to Dr. Robert A. Milligan, Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, is three simple, yet infinitely complex, things: Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence (People Power, Eastern Dairy Business, April 2012, http://dairybusiness.com/magazines/edbapr12/files/30.html).
Autonomy refers to people’s ability and freedom to make choices and decisions within the workplace. This is another way of saying that people want to feel in some small way that their experience, knowledge, and opinions matter to the long-term success of the team. It refers not only to the level of authority a person has within their job duties, but also the level of trust and confidence management has in the person to make best use of resources and production outcomes.
Relatedness refers to the degree that interpersonal relationships are fostered in the workplace. People have a need to care for and be cared for by other people. This reality doesn’t “switch off” when the person clocks in to work. The level of social respect that a person perceives in the workplace will greatly dictate their job satisfaction, regardless of position or pay.
Competence refers to the level of expertise people perceive about themselves within the specific, technical duties that they regularly perform within the scope of their job. People want to feel they are good at what they do, and that their talent and ability is appreciated by the team. Periodic recognition of ability is one means to foster this perception, but even more tangible is company-endorsed and sponsored continuing education. By providing or supporting uptake of ancillary skills, the leadership is saying, in essence, “We believe you are expert at what you do for this organization, and that we’d like you to have even greater expertise in these areas.”
It is hard to imagine that a person who feels authority to make decisions in the workplace, believes their colleagues value and respect them as a peer and as a person, and believes their supervisors feel they are true experts at their job duties would have a great deal of angst and dissatisfaction in their position in the organization. If the above perceptions are true, then it really IS about the money…
