You will be able to explain what keeps people engaged at work using autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Wei Ling has noticed that Arjun, who is on her team, has gone quiet (Wei Ling, Arjun and Wei Ling's manager Daniel are an invented example). His work is still good and his new client account is going well. He no longer volunteers ideas in team meetings, though, and in his last one-on-one he mentioned, almost in passing, that a recruiter had called him.
These are two common signs that someone is disengaging, and they can appear while the person's work is still good. Wei Ling's first thought is money, so she asks Daniel whether there is budget for a raise. He tells her there isn't until the annual review in six months. Many managers assume money is the problem. Often it isn't, or it isn't the only problem, so Wei Ling should check before she gives up. The other things that keep people engaged are much more within a manager's control than pay is.
Start with pay. If someone feels underpaid compared with the market or with colleagues doing similar work, little else will keep their attention for long. They see every extra task as more unpaid work, and they find every recruiter call tempting. Daniel Pink makes this argument in his book Drive: baseline rewards, meaning salary and benefits, must be adequate and fair before anything else works. He also argues that once baseline pay is fair, more money becomes a weaker lever for most work that needs judgement and creativity, and other things matter more.
You may not control pay, but you can find out whether a person's salary is roughly in line with the market. In Singapore, the main sources are the Ministry of Manpower's Occupational Wage Tables, the salary information on MyCareersFuture job listings, and the salary guides published by recruitment firms. Be honest in the comparison, and compare against the job the person actually does.
If someone looks clearly underpaid, raise it with your manager and HR and bring the evidence, even if nothing can change until the next review. People notice whether their manager fought for them.
Wei Ling checks and finds that Arjun's salary is within the normal range for his role. When pay is in the normal range and a recruiter's call is still tempting, the reason the person is tempted is something other than money.
Pink groups what drives people beyond pay into three needs. His grouping builds on decades of research by the psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan on intrinsic motivation, the drive to do something because it is satisfying in itself.
Autonomy is having a say in your own work and directing some of what you do, instead of only following instructions. Mastery is getting better at something that matters to you. People want to feel they are improving, and they get restless in work that has stopped teaching them anything. Purpose is knowing that your work contributes to something beyond the task itself. Connecting each person's goals to the team's outcomes is part of this, and Lesson 4.1, "From team purpose to individual goals", shows you how.
New managers often think autonomy is impossible because the work is set. Clients need their reports and escalations need answering. Autonomy doesn't have to mean choosing what to work on, though. Even when the "what" is fixed, people can often have a say in how, when or with whom.
"How" is the method. Farid's weekly reports must go out on Monday (Farid is another invented example), but he could redesign the format, choose the tools, or propose a new way of checking the figures. "When" is timing and schedule. On a hybrid team, you could let people choose which days they work from home, or let them block mornings for focus work. "With whom" is the people they work with. You could pair someone with a colleague they learn from, or let them choose a partner for a project.
Delegation levels are a form of autonomy too. On a task someone has mastered, moving them from "recommend" to "decide and tell me" is one of the clearest signals of trust a manager can give. Lesson 3.2, "Match your involvement to their experience", explains the levels.
People differ. One person may want more autonomy, another may want to master a new skill, and a third may want to see the impact of their work on clients. Guessing tends to go wrong, because managers usually assume others want what they themselves want.
Ask directly in a one-on-one. Explain the three ideas briefly, then ask which one they'd most like more of right now. Some people answer immediately. Others need a week to think, and that's fine. Write down what they say in their own words.
When Wei Ling asks, Arjun answers without hesitating: mastery. He has handled clients for six years and could do it in his sleep. He wants to learn how the operations side works, including contracts, pricing and planning. The recruiter had offered him an operations planning role, and nobody at his current company had ever asked him what he wanted to learn.
Wei Ling can act on his answer without a pay budget. She can involve Arjun in the next contract renewal, and she can ask Daniel whether Arjun could sit in on the quarterly planning meeting. After that, she and Arjun can turn what he wants to learn into a growth plan, which Lesson 6.4, "Write a growth plan with each person", covers.
Over the next week or two, put the question to each person on your team, and write down what they tell you in their own words.
At your next one-on-ones, ask each person whether they want more autonomy, mastery or purpose, and write down what they say.
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