The concept of emotional salary is increasingly gaining importance for companies in their talent retention strategies. This concept was analysed in depth in this webinar.
Víctor Segovia, the Director of Team Development at Adecco Group and former student at EAE, took part in a webinar entitled “Emotional salary – Beyond Remuneration”. The online session focused on aspects such as the importance of generating loyalty, teamwork and a sense of belonging.
To start the session, Víctor defined emotional salary as something intended to generate more than financial gratification, discussing issues related to the existence of a sole remuneration format in companies of different sizes for employees with different capacities. So, does the emotional salary have to be exactly the same for everybody. In the EAE graduate’s opinion, the emotional salary “is something intrinsic and only works when the financial remuneration is fair and covers our needs”. He went on to discuss the theories of Frederick Taylor on the labour market, as well as the incentive system developed by Henry Ford and Harry Harlow’s experiment on primates. He also mentioned the conclusions of Edward L. Deci with respect to using money as an extraneous motivation. “You are far more productive when you feel passionate about what you are doing”, he concluded.
The consultant then listed the key factors in intrinsic motivation: autonomy, proficiency and the purpose or end. “The company’s mission, vision and values have to be aligned with the employees’”, he explained. He also illustrated this idea with example of initiatives conducted by pioneering companies.
Organizations are investing an increasing amount in collaborative ROWE environments, focusing on results and structured into far more horizontal hierarchies. These spaces generate the flow of synergies between departments. “This kind of companies or perhaps this type of emotional salary depends a great deal on the sector, on the industry” clarified the coach, giving the example of Medius as a pioneering project that generates increased productivity and reduced stress among its teams. This case confirms Víctor theory that money is a motivation threshold. “You have to pay you employees well so that they can look after their families. However, once they have got their essential obligations covered, euros don’t have such a great impact on their performance or motivation”.
Another example is the case of Willian McKnight, the CEO at 3M and a pioneer who lets his technicians spend 15% of their time on their own innovation projects. He also discussed the transformation of the Zappos ecommerce platform undertaken by Tony Hsieh. The executive managed to optimize the company’s call centre through a strategy based on customers recruiting the best profiles and reducing the dropout rate of its visits. He also gave the examples of Whole Foods’ hiring system, efficient team management at Goretex and Ericsson’s ‘listening to employees’ initiative.
The expert then looked at the work of the American psychologist Carol Dweck, famous for her studies on the mindset, the self theory and growth theory. Within this framework, Víctor explained that proficiency is hard because it requires a great effort and often causes frustration if we do not achieve it. “We have to focus on proficiency to find out what we like most”, he added. Last but not least is the purpose or end. “The most deeply motivated people associate their desires with a cause that is more important than themselves. Their satisfaction depends on the fact that their objectives are the right ones”, emphasized the coach.
This context gives rise to new challenges for companies to apply concepts such as autonomy, proficiency or mission, vision and values within the compensation package. In Víctor’s opinion, the directors of organizations have to listen to their employees much more. For their part, the employees need to step off the hamster wheel, gain awareness, find moments for reflection, live in the present and prioritize. The Director of Team Development at Adecco Group recommended listening to our environment and defining a conscious personal action plan that sets a number of objectives. “Coaching helps you do just that, to get to know yourself better and identify what tools you have and where you can find others to achieve certain objectives”. In this respect, the technological sector offers new opportunities for employees, as it focuses on the most creative part, which facilitates autonomy.
Watch the full video at the following LINK
