What is the relationship between compensation and motivation? How do they interact? What makes an employee to be happy about his remuneration? How can we measure their performance? These were the questions which led the participants of the conference HR Live in one of its discussion groups, called Systems of compensation and motivation.
The conference was held on November 22 in the educational center of Hewlett-Packard in Prague. Jindřiška Sládková, Country HR Manager of Hewlett-Packard, came to share her practical experience. The discussion was facilitated by co-founder of Image Lab, Martin Kalenda, who has a long experience in coaching and training particularly in the field of employee motivation.
At the beginning the participants learned about a motivation model called SCARF, which includes 5 components:
- Status – meaning the real thing as well as the feeling associated with the position title.
- Certainty. It is the transparency and sustainability of the compensation system.
- Autonomy, or the opportunity manage one’s own work.
- Relations of an employee.
- Fair - fairness of the system.
Motivation has to be addressed already during the recruitment process. In this context, participants were also introduced performance appraisal model. The inputs of this model are: Competencies (soft and hard), attitudes and motivation, and working conditions which affect business processes.
Attitudes within the company are strongly influenced by corporate culture. Directly in the workplace, a leader is the most important person to affect attitudes and motivation. It may be a formal or an informal leader.
Most participants agreed that expectations management is the most important part of employee motivation and compensation. Both sides must clarify what they expect.
In a subsequent discussion there was an interesting observation by the only foreign participant of the conference, a consultant and expert on motivation, Jörg Petzold: "The Czechs are motivated to give high performance, but it depends where they should do it. It is necessary to find out what people need and allow or provide them with these conditions. You can then get their motivation and affect their attitude. "
Employees must have a sense of appreciation. Most of the participants expressed doubts over the possibility to meet individual needs of employees. Some, however, stressed that this is not a blanket strategy. The point is to attract and retain the best people, who generate the greatest value for the company. In this context, it was also discussed whether or not it is possible to create a system of reward and motivation in state organizations.
Every evaluation system within the company must be top down: Who was evaluated should give further evaluation. A good evaluation system will map how people would manage what the company gives them. Both parties must always be aware of their expectations.
HR Live discussion meeting was held on 22 November 2011 in Prague. It was organized by Czech educational and advisory portal EduCity in cooperation with educational companies Image Lab, Cadet Go and Interquality and educational center of Hewlett-Packard. The eighteenth live event was called "HR for Business" and met its goal of a professional conference where all the participants are speaking. Four morning and four afternoon discussion blocks were prepared. Eight to ten HR managers were discussing the topics of talent management, internal training and coaching, systems of remuneration and HR business partnership in separate conference rooms.