Motivation in the CNMI

Last Thursday we were invited as guest speakers for the CNMI Chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management. They offer a professional forum for discussion and training in human resource (people) matters.

Our topic was how to improve motivation in the workplace. Even in the best of times, motivation is a perennial topic for business owners and managers. With the issues facing the Commonwealth, knowing how to motivate your workforce is even more critical.

One way to get the best performance is to use the formula: KASH x Motivation = Performance. KASH stands for the Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills, and Habits of your staff. Improving the combined knowledge and skills, along with attitudes and habits of everyone will cause performance to improve. However, when motivation is part of the equation, it doesn’t merely improve performance; it acts as a multiplier to greatly increase the overall performance of your organization.

For a manager, motivation means getting your people to want to work as efficiently and effectively as they can. Their knowledge, attitudes, skills, and habits determine their ability; however, high motivation ensures they are using their full capability.

Motivation acts as a catalyst to give you a much greater return on the investment you make in your greatest asset. Your investment includes payroll, benefits programs, and the costs of recruiting and training. The direct benefits you will receive from a more motivated workforce are improved efficiency, job performance, and better quality. Some of the indirect effects are reduced costs, greater market share, happier customers, and an increase in sales and profits.

The group we addressed represented a good cross-section of the CNMI workforce, so we thought it would be interesting to take an intrinsic motivation survey, and then share the results with you, while keeping the specific companies and individuals who took the survey confidential. The 15 who turned in their results work in the government, education, hotels, retail, and other private-sector businesses. The total number of employees working in all of the organizations is 1,629 people and they range in size from 7 to 300 employees, with the average being 108.

The survey contained 20 questions, with each question worth from 1 to 5 points. The lowest score was 20 (which means this person feels their work environment is as low as it can get), and the highest was 94. The average score was 70.3. The scores of those working in the government and education tended to be lower than the scores in the private sector. Areas that some individuals identified as strengths turned out to be weaknesses for other organizations, and vice versa. Some questions that were ranked low included:

– An environment that is free from criticism, gossip, and put-downs.

– Having an exciting vision that captures the organization’s imagination.

– An environment where workers feel safe to make decisions.

– Having clear milestones (reference points) to measure progress.

The participants were also asked: What do you feel is the biggest challenge facing you to create and sustain a motivated workforce. Job security was mentioned several times, and some of the other responses included: lack of financial support and resources; lack of praise or appreciation; lack of faith from others to complete a job; and poor communication.

Do any of these responses sound familiar with your organization? Too many negative factors will reduce the motivation level in your organization. If this happens, investing more into your human resources will be like trying to step on the accelerator while having one foot on the brake.

Adding motivation to your human KASH will increase your financial cash flow and let you realize maximum performance. It will be like taking off the brakes and stepping on the accelerator of your business while going downhill. Not only will you get where you want to go faster, but you will certainly enjoy the ride a lot more.

We offered several of our previous articles concerning motivation to the participants. If you would like some of the articles and the 20-question Intrinsic Motivation survey, e-mail us and we will be happy to send them to you.

(Rik is a business instructor at NMC and Janel is the owner of Positively Outrageous Results. They can be contacted at: biz_results@yahoo.com)