Do You Know Your Employees? Professor Biswajeet Pattanayak (HR & OB) of IM-Indore feels that the best way to retain a talented employee is to discover his inner desires and fulfil it! 1 the changing business scenario, the evolving nature of the organisations along with failures, downsizing, merg- ers and acquisitions, maintaining organ- isational productivity calls for better strategic planning effors by the Human Resource (HR) professionals. The orientation is towards restructuring along flatter, linear lines, with few layers of management and fewer people at the upper levels. In this envi- ronment. there is a knowledge revolution across the organisations to achieve corporate excellence. Corporations in general, information tech- nology sector in particular. facing difficul- ties in retaining their best talents in spite of the salary hike, better fringe benefits, etc. Though it has been accepted that money plays an important role as a motivator for the employees, it has been experienced that in reality knowledge workers look beyond this In these days of talent wars, retaining the per- sons or star performer in the organisation is more difficult than getting a person. Thus the best way to retain your star performers is to understand them and their psychological needs and sometimes going beyond to dis- cover more than what they know about themselves During the interaction with the senior execu- tives in several occasions, it has been observed that in most of the cases managers who keep on changing companies have often not realised that it was not the compa- ny they needed to change but their own workstyle. Many talented professionals leave their organisations because the top management does not understand the psy- chology of work satisfaction; they assume that the people who excel at their work are necessarily happy in their jobs. Although this sounds logical, in reality competency does not lead to job satisfaction. Most of the pro- fessional executives can succeed virtually in any job situation because of their high achievement orientation and sound knowl- edge base. Though the opposite of satisfac- tion is dissatisfaction, in the work place absence of dissatisfaction not necessarily ensures work satisfaction. To make people satisfied, we need to understand their deeply embedded life interest and the psychology of work satisfaction It is said that marriages are made in heaven, but the younger generation is apparently not satisfied with this reasoning. They feel that marriage is an institution and it is one’s own responsibility to ensure its success. Career in INDIAN MANAGEMENT ¢ FEBRUARY 2001 35tell me your ambition, Vit helb you. organisational sector is like a marriage between the individual and the organisation without a biological relationship. It is a mutu- al responsibility of both the employee and the organisation to identify the degree of compatibility in terms of the mutual expecta- tions right at the beginning and also during the continuity. There are eight deeply embedded life inter- ests like application of technique, quantita- tive analysis, theory development and con- ceptual thinking, creative production, coun- ing and mentoring, managing people and relationships, enterprise control and influ- ence througis ‘inguaze and ideas Depending on the intensity of these life inter- ests, the person is going to be satisfied with a particular type of work 1. Application of Technique: The people, who have high application technique inter- ests, will like to have a work assignment that involves planning, analysing, production and operation sys- tems and redesigning business processes, 2 Quantitative Aptitude: These peo- ple see mathematical work as fun when oth- ers consider it as drudgery, In fact many of these individ- uals find themselves in other kinds of work because they have been told that follow- ing their true passions will narrow their career prospects, 3T heory Development and Conceptual Thinking: These people like thinking and talking about abstract ideas and they are more interested towards academic careers. 4. Creative Production: These people are highly imaginative. They are entrepreneurial and they feel excited on new elements being discussed 5. Counselling and Mentoring: These peo- ple talk fondly about subordinates of their Previous organisations like a parent would talk about his/her children. They make themselves known if their jobs include the opportunity to do so. Managing People and Relationships: Similarly, a person having interest in manag- ing people and relationships enjoys dealing with people on a day-to-day basis anc derives happiness in line management p tion or sales career 7. Enterprise Control: These people find satisfaction in making the decision that deter- mines the direction taken by a work team, a business unit or an entire organisation. They always ask for as much as responsibility as possible in work situations. 8, Influence through Language and Ideas: These people love ideas and expressing INDIAN MANAGEMENT * FEBRUARY 2001them for sheer enjoyment that comes from story telling, negotiating or persuading. They love to write and speak. They feel happy with the careers in public relations and advertising, These interests are not hobbies. Instead, deeply embedded life interests are long-held emotionally driven passions, intricately entwined with personality and thus born of an indeterminate mixture of nature and the person himself. These life interests do not determine what people are good at - they drive what kind of activities makes them happy. At workplace, that happiness often translates into commitment. It keeps people engaged and it prevents them from quitting the organisation. Basically these interests start showing themselves in childhood and remain relatively stable throughout our lives. Edward Debono has also pointed out regarding the ‘destination’ and ‘process’ satisfaction. If today’s lateral organisations, providing desti- nation satisfaction all the time is too difficult as the steps in the organisational hierarchy has been reduced and maximum two or three promotions in the entire career of the indi- vidual can be thought of. Hence, every time it is not possible to ensure destination happi- ness by the organisation. Alternatively, the process satisfaction can ensure better satis- faction and also motivate the knowledge workers. This can be achieved in two ways: either understand the embedded life satisfac- tion of the person and assign the work accordingly or enrich the job contentto make it more qualitative and attractive. In the sec- ond alternative, the person may deliver the best performance but not necessarily derive psychological work satisfaction. Recently Bulter and Waldroop have dis- cussed about the “job sculpting technique” as an art of retaining best people. Job sculpting technique requires talking away parts of a job, which the employee dislikes, and also finding someone to take them on. This is an artof matching people to jobs that allow their deeply embedded life interests to find expression. It is the art of forging a cus- INDIAN MANAGE! % tomised career path in order to increase the chance of retaining talented people. Of course, this is a challenging task to be done by the managers playing the role of both detectives and psychologists. The reason being that many people have only a dim awareness of their deeply embedded inter- ests. In many cases, they may have spent their lives fulfilling and the expectations of other people, or they may have followed the most common career advice: “Do what you are good at”, But not realising that whatever you are good at may not necessarily be satis- fying. Itis being observed that normally peo- ple realise this very late in their career path, As a result, in their mid-career they often realise that they have lost the years behind unproductivity which then leads to career crisis. Most of the young MBAs accept the jobs knowing very little about their interest and anchors. Finally, some people end up in the wrong jobs because they have entered the organisation not for their interests but for other reasons such as financial rewards or prestige. On the top most people are not aware of what kind of jobs are going to make them happy. In the knowledge economy, human resource is most vital. In spite of the best practices, technology and resources, organi- sations differ in excellence in terms of their people and people processes. The processes require an ongoing dialogue between an employee and the direct superior of his own department rather than pushing this to the domain or HR department. HR can only act as facilitator in this process. References Butler, T. & Waldrop, J. (1999). Job sculpt- ing: The art of retaining your best people. Harvard Business Review, September - October, 144-152. Debono, E. (1971). Lateral Thinking for Management. A Handbook. London Penguin Books. Pattanayak, B. (1997). Career Marriages: Made on Earth. Human Capital, December, 38-39. . NT * FEBRUARY 2001 37