Drive Engagement Scores By Leveraging the MotiveXTM Assessment by Katina Sawyer, Ph.D., Chief Talent Scientist - MotiveX Christian Thoroughgood, Ph.D., Chief Talent Scientist - MotiveX Published: January 25, 2018 The MotiveXTM Assessment is a revolutionary, scientifically-validated assessment that measures (a) core, intrinsic motivators of employees, (b) the extent to which these motivators are present in their current job, and (c) the gap between what motivates them and what they are currently experiencing or able to tap into at work [i.e., discrepancies between (a) and (b)]. Rooted in decades of research on employee motivation, the MotiveXTM Assessment was created to measure what intrinsically motivates employees in order to provide insights to better align work environments, job assignments, and team dynamics that activate these natural motivators. Although many organizations measure satisfaction and engagement, motivation is altogether different. Motivation involves activating underlying psychological factors that foster persistence, intensity, and discretionary effort toward a particular goal or set of goals. Although satisfaction and engagement can have positive and negative effects on performance and turnover intentions, they are more task or job-specific (i.e., Are you engaged based on your benefits? Are you satisfied with your supervisor? Do you wish to leave your current employer?). Motivation has to do with the extent to which people are driven to work toward something that provides meaning and purpose. This means that motivators are more deeply seated than engagement, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions – they are about who a person is, rather than what she are doing at the moment. As a result, motivators are actually predictive of engagement, satisfaction, and turnover intentions at work. Given the capacity of these powerful intrinsic motivators to predict engagement, we created the MotiveXTM Assessment to solve a problem that continues to frustrate employees and managers alike. The disconnect with this source of frustration is what to do about the identified disengaged employees. This is corroborated by evidence that suggests that while companies have been measuring engagement for decades, most employees remain disengaged or not actively engaged). What is driving this disconnect? The key issue is that engagement is a lagging indicator, not a leading indicator. It tells you how things are going within a particular organization, and is driven by how things have been in the past. Motivators are different. They are central to an individual’s ability to feel connected to what they are doing and to feel enthusiastic and passionate about completing tasks or projects. For this reason, motivators are actually predictors of engagement, which naturally leads to performance outcomes. In other words, engagement is the “middle man”, while motivation is the root cause of engagement. This means that by closing the gap between employees’ ideal motivators and the extent to which organizations are tapping into these motivators (i.e., the MotiveXTM Assessment), organizations will increase engagement (e.g., the Gallup Q-12), which leads to increased performance outcomes (Figure 1). Figure 1 Motivational Gaps Engagement (MotiveXTM Assessment) (Gallup Q-12) Performance Outcomes (Performance Review Scores, Objective Metrics, etc.) The data that our scientific research team collected in the validation process for our MotiveXTM Assessment supports these relationships. Across our ten (10) dimensions of motivation, closing the gap between what employees find intrinsically motivating and the extent to which these motivators are currently present in their work was directly correlated with the Gallup Q-12 measure of engagement for all ten (10) dimensions. Our MotiveXTM Assessment report highlights the top three areas in which each employee, team, department, or organization should focus resources in order to best align the work environment with said motivators. In our research study, we found that by taking action to address these gap areas, organizations are able to enhance scores on the Gallup Q-12. In other words, the more employees found that their jobs aligned with their intrinsic motivators, the more engaged they were at work. Further, the relationships between closing motivational gaps and engagement was scientifically compelling. Correlations between our motivational gaps and the Q-12 ranged between .28 and .52, with 1.0 being a perfect correlation. This means that between 28% and 52% of the factors that engage your employees can be explained by our MotiveXTM Assessment. As a result, by using our assessment to measure your employees’ motivators and to gain quantitative insights about how to align and drive those motivators at work, you stand to increase your engagement scores by at least 28%. For example, if a company uses the MotiveXTM Assessment, it might receive information that a team of employees is highly motivated by influence, learning and values, but the team members don’t feel they have the opportunity to influence others, develop their skills, and do not feel their values align with the organization overall. The company might then take steps to allow these employees to have greater input into important workplace decisions, implement more training or mentoring programs to help improve their skill sets, and start a campaign to spread the word about the company’s core values and mission. After the organization takes these steps, these employees will feel more motivated to perform their jobs well and to feel part of the company overall. As a result, if their Gallup Q-12 engagement scores were at a 60% level before, the company could now expect an increase in engagement scores to 80% or above. This rise in engagement will result in increased performance and enhanced bottom line. Overall, if you have been measuring engagement at work, but have not been able to move the needle, you need to start by understanding what motivates your employees at their core. By doing this, you can create jobs and work environments that are self-motivating; making it far more likely those employees will be engaged in their work. This also means that if you are currently using a workplace engagement assessment, such as the Gallup Q-12, you can maximize your investment by adding motivation as a leading indicator in your human capital equation. By harnessing the power of your employees’ intrinsic motivators, you will be able to unleash the potential that exists within your organization, truly moving past conversations about engagement and satisfaction and addressing performance and productivity issues at their core.
