Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Beyond Work

Beyond Work is our line of resources for people and community leaders looking for something new and innovative outside, be it a new job, career change, or personal development outside of work.

What You Pay Does Matter

“$11.32 an hour,” she said. “That’s what many people can earn sitting on their couch. How am I supposed to encourage them to get off the couch when many of the jobs they qualify for don’t pay that?”

This statement came from a frustrated state career center worker tasked with getting individuals off federal and state assistance through a job placement program.

I could turn this conversation into a political post, but I won’t go there. Instead, I’d like to focus on how it illustrates a basic premise of motivation.

I’m going to spend the next few weeks talking about how to give people what they really want out of work (motivational factors) through performance management and maximization practices, but let’s face it, when I do this, I’m making the assumption that a basic living wage, or even a wage that is competitive with the wage someone could go across the street and earn with the skill set they have, (a hygiene factor) is provided in all workplaces I’m addressing. I can talk all day long about how meaningful work leads to performance maximization, but if that meaningful work doesn’t meet basic needs, or if basic needs can be met by, well doing nothing, then people are going to turn to being unproductive or turn to walking across the street for the higher wage. They are going to sit on the couch either literally or metaphorically by the way the show up to work and well, do just about nothing, or by taking their skills and going elsewhere.

It goes back to one of the basic premises of workplace (or well really any place) motivation that drives behavior: hygiene vs. motivational factors. Thanks to Herzberg, we have this tried and true theory that tells us if you really want to get the most out of people, you need motivational factors in the workplace like challenge, autonomy, creativity, etc.- basically all things that lead to meaningful work- to actually have the power to truly motivate someone.

However, hygiene factors keep people from being dissatisfied. And a lack of dissatisfaction is necessary for the motivational factors to work. Someone may be overwhelmingly content with the work they do, but if you don’t pay them enough to meet a certain standard of living, that oftentimes they compare to others around them that are doing the same or similar work, the motivational factors won’t work at least in the long run.

So before you go giving someone autonomy and meaning in their work and assuming that will keep people satisfied at the least or motivated at the most, look at how much you are paying. Get out your local wage survey and examine if your wages are competitive with the competitor across the street and around the world. Goodness help us all when the competitor across the street ends up being the federal assistance program (okay, maybe I did have to get a little political).

When was the last time you examined your wage practices?

October 1, 2015
What are your Generational “Sticking Points”?
“The whole chair situation makes so much more sense now,” said a woman in a Generations in the Workplace seminar recently.

As many of us looked at her perplexed, she went on to explain, “I bought new chairs for our office. I can’t get those in earlier generations to use them. They said the old ones are just fine. I can’t get the newer generation to quit standing up in them so they can talk to someone over the cubicle wall. I never knew how much headaches new chairs could cause,” she said with a sigh, but also some excitement in having an ah-ha moment over the issue realizing that the events and experiences of each generation impact workplace behavior.

Whereas she saw the older generation concerned with things like prudence (as shaped from living through the great depression and the war years), she saw another generation that felt encumbered by cubicle walls and wanted a workplace much like the homes they were brought up in where casual conversation and open dialogue was encouraged. Standing up in the chairs, even if they were new, didn’t seem to be a big deal. Standing up in the chairs to the prudent generation seemed disrespectful.

What this lady realized was that the chairs had sparked not one, but several, of the 12 generational sticking points that that Haydn Shaw notes in Sticking Points: How to Get the Generations to Work Together in the 12 Places They Come Apart

They are:
1. Communication
2. Decision Making
3. Dress Code
4. Feedback
5. Fun at Work
6. Knowledge Transfer
7. Loyalty
8. Meetings
9. Policies
10. Respect
11. Training
12. Work Ethic
Which sticking point(s) would you chalk the chair situation up to? Which sticking points do you encounter the most in your workplace?

As discussed in this training, the best way to combat these sticking points is to consider whether the issue impacts business necessity or if it simply involves workplace preferences that different generations or just people with different backgrounds, personalities and experiences prefer. Examine what is business necessity by what contributes to your company’s competitive advantage and then make decisions based on business necessity, not workplace preferences. By creating a workplace that is flexible enough for different people to experience their workplace preferences contributes to competitive advantage just as much if not more than workplace policy that is governed by business necessity.
September 29, 2015
Could it Simply Be Your Generation?

There is a lot of hype out there today, and there has been for quite of a few years, regarding generations in the workplace. It has become one of the key topics to focus on when it comes to interoffice dynamics and diversity issues in the workplace. And its fun to talk about it and classify people as such.

While it is obvious that different events and cultural norms shape us all and these things can help define a generation of people (for example, who is dumb enough to think that 9/11 and the computer haven’t shaped the thought processes, ways of working and ways of interacting and communicating with others as clutch things of the millennial generation) it is also obvious that many of the things we chalk up to generational differences are quite plainly, age differences, not generational differences.

Take for example this quote from Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee’s much anticipated second book that was released this past summer:

“Alexandra was not amused. She was extremely annoyed. She could not comprehend the attitudes of young people these days. Not that they needed understanding- young people were the same in every generation- but this cockiness, this refusal to take seriously the gravest question of their lives, nettled and irritated her.”

This quote addresses Aunt Alexandra’s (Scout’s aunt, Atticus’ sister) feelings regarding Scout’s take on her marital prospects and priorities. The book is set in the 1950s, and Scout at the time was 26. She would be labeled a “Traditional” by generational standards, born before 1945, yet she is taking on the generational characteristics much like those we would see people complaining about today as millennial. Her aunt is serving the role of the traditional, traditionalist.

Is it generation or is it just simply a product of age?

A more personal story might help illustrate this dynamic. I used to run quite frequently with my dad. Full disclosure, he was born in the 1950s and therefore part of the Baby Boomer generation; I was born in the 1980s so I’m a part of the millennial generation. On one morning run, I asked him about a friend of the family who had just started work fresh out of college at a government contractor. I asked if she liked her new her job. To which my dad replied, “Well her dad said that she doesn’t really like it all that much, but if I were her, I’d tell her to stick with it. Government jobs have great retirement and in 25-30 years she is going to need that.”

To which I replied, “Yeah, always wise to stay in a job you hate for 25-30 years just to have the retirement package that may or may not be there 25-30 years from now.”

You could chalk this dialogue of ours up to classic generational differences and it would make a lot of sense. That’s why people love all the generational stuff. However, if you stop and think about it, when I run with my now four year old and/or one year old 30 years from now (which I hope I will be doing), could the same conversation play over again and I have the response of my dad and they have the response I have? If so, that’s not a product of generation, that’s straight up a product of age and what is important to people given the certain “season” they are in in their life not the time period in which they were born.

So before you go blaming your next workplace squabble on generational issues (or any one, single factor), stop and think about what combined factors shaped the person that you are disagreeing with. You may see generations at play, but you may also see a host of other factors at work (no pun intended).That’s why it is best to focus on training that captures the heart of all the sources of our differences and challenges as a framework to focus on the important takeaway: capitalizing on those differences by turning them into competitive advantages that create more productive and passionate workplaces.

What do you blame on generational issues? What could you be doing to capitalize on these differences?

September 22, 2015
How Millennial Are You?

We at Horizon Point love all things that could be considered as a personality quiz or assessment, especially if they can be tied to workplace dynamics. Although we recommend using only validated assessments for things like selection, training, coaching and teambuilding, we love a fun quiz that attempts to classify individuals along popular group lines every now and then.
We came across Pew Research’s “How Millennial are You?” quiz, and just had to share it. Here’s the link to take it: http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/how-millennial-are-you/

Below is a graphic of my results. I am a millennial, so it seems fitting that I scored as such. Interestingly enough, the article I read that mentions this quiz said that many people not a part of the millennial generation were testing more millennial than they thought.

Take the quiz for yourself and let us know what you scored. Are you more millennial than you think? Do you think the questions accurately reflect issues effecting how millennial you might be or are there other factors you think that impact how someone would answer each question (for example, we think some of these questions may be more of a reflection of what part of the country you were born in than your generation). Let us know your thoughts!

September 17, 2015
3 Tips for Knowing What to Wear in the Workplace

Whether you’re headed out the door for an interview, starting your first day of work or wanting to move up in your career, what you wear (and what you don’t) can be an important factor in success. Although the workplace has become more casual than it once was, it’s important to know the different cues in order to dress for success. Here are three tips to identify what to wear:

1. Look around you. What the majority of people are wearing around you is probably what is the unspoken norm of acceptable. I walked into my first interview for a job coming out of college, and it was obvious everyone there was dressed like they were going to an interview too. Suit. If you had a skirt on, put hose on, do not show your arms. It was obvious what was required, and I ended up shelling out almost all of my first paycheck on a new wardrobe of business attire. And sweating all summer long… But if I hadn’t worn this, I would not have been seen as acceptable in the environment I was working in and I would not have been respected as a new person coming in.

2. Simply Ask. If you are unsure of what the dress code is for an organization or what is most appropriate after looking at the people around you, simply ask. Many employers don’t have formal dress codes anymore (but they might- and you should read it if there is one), but there is usually an unspoken standard. Ask about what that is. I remember coming from previously mentioned corporate job, to accepting a position at a much smaller organization. I wasn’t sure what the protocol for dress was at this new place because I had seen people that worked there in a variety of attire. So I asked. The response I got was “just don’t wear anything you would wear to the river on the weekends,” which was code for, “Business casual is the norm, unless there is an important meeting or something going on.”

3. Think about where you want to be. This is the most important point to consider. Dress at a workplace is an unspoken pulse on company culture. Once you’ve identified what the dress is for an organization or a job within an organization, you need to consider whether or not that is a fit for you along with other organizational fit factors. This is also an important point to consider if you want to move up. A good piece of advice I think we have all probably heard is, “Dress for the position you want, not the position you have.”

Have you ever dressed inappropriately in the workplace and been “punished” for doing so?

September 15, 2015