Motivation you do not pay for: changing the job, not the pay packet

1. Edexcel names three non-financial methods, job rotation, job enrichment and autonomy, and each one changes what the employee actually does all day.
2. Pay and working conditions sit underneath all three, and the financial methods, remuneration, bonus, commission, promotion and fringe benefits, are covered in 2.5.4b.

The three methods: rotation, enrichment and autonomy

1. Job rotation: moving staff between different tasks in the business, usually tasks at the same level of difficulty.
   1. It motivates because variety cuts boredom and because each person builds a wider set of skills, so a Greggs shop moving staff between the counter, the ovens and the cleaning would keep the shift from dragging and could still open properly when someone calls in sick.
   2. Follow the chain to the business: concentration holds up across a long shift, so fewer errors reach the customer and less product is thrown away, which lifts productivity without raising the wage bill.
   3. Rotation also shows a manager which task each employee is quickest at, so the rota can be built around strengths instead of habit.
   4. Its weakness is that the tasks may all be equally dull, so swapping between them changes very little, and output dips every time somebody starts a job they are still learning.
2. Job enrichment: giving an employee more challenging and more responsible work, such as handling complaints or ordering stock, rather than simply more of the same work.
   1. Enrichment hands over a whole slice of the job, such as one employee owning the weekly stock order from counting the shelves to placing it with the supplier, so they see the result of their own decision rather than a fragment of somebody else's.
   2. It motivates because the work itself becomes more interesting and because handing over responsibility tells the employee they are trusted, so they take more care over the result and are less likely to look for another job.
   3. It also builds the skills a supervisor needs, so the next vacancy can be filled from inside, which saves the cost of advertising the job and of training a stranger.
   4. Its weakness is that the harder work has to be trained for first, and not everyone wants more responsibility, so an employee who was content as they were may read the change as pressure.
3. Autonomy: giving staff control over how they do their work and letting them make decisions without asking a manager first.
   1. It motivates because being trusted raises commitment, and because the people closest to the work usually know the quickest way to do it, so a problem on the shop floor is fixed in minutes instead of waiting for permission.
   2. Autonomy works best with a written limit, such as a team leader allowed to refund up to £20 without asking, so staff know where their own judgement ends and a quick decision cannot become an expensive one.
   3. Its weakness is that it only works with capable, well-trained staff, and it produces inconsistency, since two employees left to their own methods will not deal with the same customer in the same way.
4. The three differ in what they change for the employee, what they cost the business and what the business must already have in place.

Judging the three methods against paying more

1. A better-designed job will not hold staff who can earn more for the same work elsewhere, so a business paying below the going rate should deal with pay first.
2. Once pay is competitive, rotation suits repetitive work, autonomy suits capable staff who need more control, and enrichment works when managers can hand over real responsibility rather than simply extra tasks.
3. Overall, choose the method that matches the cause of low motivation and the employee's skills, rather than assuming either more pay or one job-design method will work for everyone.