Motivation in times of remote work

In organizations, initiatives are created focused on monetary incentives to motivate employees more and achieve greater commitment and greater productivity. However, this approach is no longer working in several companies. It is important to be clear that we cannot make people motivated or committed, but we can establish the appropriate working conditions to maximize the probability of increasing levels of motivation and commitment.

Management 3.0 created the CHAMPFROGS model, which is made up of ten “moving motivators”. These motivators are intrinsic, extrinsic, or a little of both. It allows each person on a team to share what motivates them. These 10 motivators are:

1. Curiosity: People are motivated when they have many things to investigate and think about because it generates learning and a greater understanding of how things work.

2. Honor: People are proud that their values ​​are reflected in the work they do.

3. Acceptance: Team members approve of what people do and who they are.

4. Mastery: Work challenges people’s competence, allowing their skills to develop.

5. Power: People have a need to have an influence on their work environment.

6. Freedom: People are independent of others with their work and responsibilities. It has a close relationship with empowerment.

7. Relatedness: People have good social relationships with others at work.

8. Order: Workers have enough rules and policies to carry out their activities in a stable environment.

9. Goal: Everyone’s personal purpose is reflected in the work they do.

10. Status: People have a good position and are recognized by their other colleagues.

HOW DO I APPLY THIS PRACTICE?

In the operations area, there are that execute the development projects. The profile of the members of these teams is a technical profile. It is made up of developers and analysts with two years of experience in the role. This team is the one with the highest level of demand in any organization. It is the only team that works in person at the company offices (the other teams work remotely).

In February of this year, the Human Resources area was reviewing the performance indicators of last year (2019) and realized that they had decreased in the last quarter of that year. These results were reflected in a delay in the times in some deliveries of the projects. The HR area was reviewing the option of creating an initiative that rewards financially the achievement of results for each member of the team, however, they did not know if it would help increase the motivation and commitment of the team. The COVID-19 outbreak in March this year paralyzed this initiative. Our organization faced the low productivity of this team and the challenges of remote work (it was the first time this team would do it). With this, the uncertainty of the company was greater.

As a result of all this situation, last year I took an official Management 3.0 training where I learned about this great tool called Moving Motivators. This context would be a very good opportunity to put it into practice in the operations area of our company.

We coordinate with the director of operations to facilitate the retrospective meeting of an operations team for the month of January 2020 and initiate our pilot in the use of the Moving Motivators. In this meeting we carry out the following activities:

• Get to know the CHAMPFROGS model: We had a 1-hour session to share the content of each of the 10 motivators in the CHAMPFROGS model, with some examples illustrating the purpose of each motivator.

• My personal motivators: Present my 10 personal motivators to the team. It helped me create a space of trust and acceptance. Emphasize that there are no good or bad motivators. They are only motivators that are more or less important to us.
• Individual team motivators (January 2020): I asked you to take some time to internalize the meaning of each motivator. Then each person began to place their own cards according to their highest level of importance.

• Review of team motivators (January 2020): Transfer the motivators of each team member on a single wall and create a radar that allows us to visualize what motivates the team the most. Each person shared their motivators with examples of what motivates them in the work environment. This helped us generate enriching conversations that brought the team closer together and allowed them to get to know each other more.

• Presentation of results (January 2020): We reviewed the results and realized that in the last quarter of the previous year some events had occurred, such as the departure of team members, change of direct manager of the area, a new tool for performance evaluation, among others. They definitely hadn’t realized the impact of these changes on team motivation.

As a result of COVID-19, in May of this year, we reviewed the motivators of the operations team again (after 4 months). The objective was to evaluate the negative or positive impact of this global situation. We carry out the following activities:

• We reviewed the concept of each motivator so that we again focus on the impact of this pandemic on our work.
• Present to the team the impact on my personal motivators.
• Each team member moved their own cards now from top to bottom or vice versa, graphing the impact on their motivators and shared them with the team.
• Then, we talked about the situations that had impacted each motivator for each person. A climate of trust and empathy was created.
• Finally, we reviewed the results with the HR department and the director of operations and some action plans were defined so that the motivators are not negatively impacted.

WHAT DID I LEARN WHEN USING MOVING MOTIVATORS?

My biggest learnings in the use of this practice are:

• The moving motivators allowed us to get to know the team more. The team felt heard.
• It is essential that the team clearly know the meaning of each motivator and knows what the emphasis of each is to better align each card with their own motivations.
• People may try to “copy” the motivators of others and be influenced by the motivators of others. This usually happens when there is no maturity in the team. In this case, it is a good strategy for them to arrange their motivators in unshared murals.
• The results of the motivators show that the people in a team are not the same. Definitely, the team’s potential lies in its diversity.
• When the organization manages a leadership focused on command and control, the participation of the leader can condition the freedom of opinions of the team.
• For some specific roles, it is required that some specific motivations be cultivated. For example: in a team of developers, curiosity would be a very valuable motivator.

Dare to know the motivations of your team with the moving motivators!

Thank you!

For more information: https://management30.com/practice/moving-motivators

For remote teams, you can download the template at: https://management30.com/download/34536/