This article is in response to Edd Tury's questioning in last month's Growing Pains column of how to motivate employees.

The classic paper on this subject is one by Frederick Herzberg, One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?", published sometime in the '70s in the Harvard Business Review. (I don't remember the issue, but if you want a copy, I'm sure a librarian can find it for you.)

Herzberg was (and maybe still is) Professor and Chairman of the Psychology Department at Case Western Reserve. He's the father of the "job enrichment" approach to employee motivation, coining that term in that paper (and if still living, I'm sure quite distraught with the gross caricature others have made of that term in the intervening years).

The essential insight that he added to the subject is that job satisfaction is NOT the opposite of job dissatisfaction. Rather the opposite of job satisfaction is no job satisfaction and, likewise, the opposite of job dissatisfaction is no job dissatisfaction. And he went on to show that the factors that influence job satisfaction are different from -- and largely independent of -- those that affect job dissatisfaction.

Herzberg's paper, when I discovered it in the late '70s, caused a paradigm shift in my understanding of employee motivation. It resulted in a total reorganization of my company and in the way I viewed (and continue to view) employees and my responsibilities to them.

Following are some of the rules that evolved from my understanding of Herzberg.

Be decisive in hiring.

Under expanding employee-rights law, you have like 90 days to make that determination. If they're not fitting in -- or even if you have reservations about their fitting in -- let them go! Once they've passed that initial trial period, you have an obligation -- moral if not legal -- to help that person become the best employee that he or she can be.

If you do let them go, make it clear that the problem is in the fit. They may well be a great employee for another company. Give them the chance to find out! Every person can eventually find a "fit". When they do, both they and the company will be happy. You'll not be doing either them or your company any favors by letting mis-fits stay.

Treat employees as adults -- not children.

Whatever the rules, they should be clear, precise -- and minimum. They must be uniformly administered -- applied as equally to your star engineer as to the new-hire on the assembly line. They should be documented in an "employee handbook" (which need be no more than a few sheets stapled together) which should be given to each employee and all new hires. And each rule should include not only the rule but the "why". Keep in mind that the primary purpose of these rules is to protect the safety and comfort of your employees -- only secondarily to protect your company. Before freezing the handbook, talk over the rules with your employees. If they have trouble with some of the "whys", either convince them or let them convince you.

Avoid paternalism.

All an employee owes you is a good day's work for a good day's pay. Nothing more. Nothing less. You can't "buy" warm-fuzzies like loyalty and devotion -- even at 20 times the going wage!

If you want to share the company's success with your employees, do so with random bonuses when you have extra cash. And be certain that that extra cash cannot better be spent in "growing" your business. You'll be doing your employees a much greater favor by expanding your business -- creating more challenges and opportunities for them -- than by simply doling out cash -- if the business can be reasonably and safely expanded.

Avoid timed bonuses. All "Christmas" bonuses after the first will become not "bonuses" but "expecteds". And distribute the bonuses in equal amounts or, at worst, proportionate to pay. Any taint of favoritism will not only obviate any good-will you intended -- but drive it firmly negative.

Avoid incentive pay.

You can use incentives to trigger a short-term burst of output. But be assured that the next time such a burst is required, the reward will no longer be looked at as an "incentive" -- but as an "expected". Worse, if such a burst becomes not required in the normal course of events, your employees will -- wholly unconsciously -- see that such a burst does become required.

Pay to get out extra product at the end of an accounting period, and you'll get out extra at the end of every accounting period. That's what you're telling them you want. Of course, if you look at the numbers, you'll find that you're shipping a bit less during the accounting period!

There are strong believers in incentive pay -- especially in sales. I've enjoyed over the years listening to sales managers extol their incentive systems. But listening closely, year to year, what I really hear is what was wrong with their last system and why their new system will be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sure it will!

Avoid long-term employees.

Trying to retain employees after they've stopped learning is bad for the employee and bad for the company. Bad for the employee because they've stopped "growing" -- stopped improving their unique value in the job market. Bad for the company because it stifles the flow of new ideas, new insights, new views of the changing business environment.

Why is it done? Because it's easier on the manager -- do I want to hold onto this guy or go through the hassle of trying to hire and train someone new? And it's easier on the employee -- there's equal hassle in looking for and starting a new job. Both parties are inherently oriented toward choosing the "easy" way -- to the very real detriment of both.

Your star employee, once a dynamo, once willing, able and eager to tackle any task, no longer shows that drive. The problem may be outside personal problems -- whereupon you have the obligation to help him through that period. However, it's more likely that he's simply no longer learning at the rate he was. He's no longer stimulated and challenged -- he's bored.

It's time for him to move on -- and instead of trying to hold him with pay and benefits -- you should try to help him find a new job where he can continue to grow.

Cross-train.

Say you hire someone in to do assembly. In time, they're doing that job competently -- maybe very well -- but they've stopped learning. They may or may not become a problem -- but they're certainly not stimulated, motivated. You can raise their pay and benefits, but as we've said before, that's a short-term fix -- with long-term consequences.

Instead, try moving them on -- into, say, incoming inspection. And once they're doing that competently, let them run your machinery... or work in the paint room ... or in final test, or final inspection, or shipping.

Forget any notion that there are men jobs and women jobs. And question any notions you may hold about skilled jobs. Yes you may need a skilled machinist to produce custom parts -- but not routine parts. You may need a skilled technician to do generalized testing -- but not routine testing. If your needs are routine, hire a moonlighting machinist or technician to come in to show your employees how to make those parts or how to run those tests.

When an employee has all the jobs involved in building the product down pat, let them plan, schedule and manage the whole production operation for awhile.

When they're doing that competently, move them into purchasing and let them do some buying. And then into sales... and service, letting them handle some sales and service calls for awhile. And then into accounting, letting them maintain the books, file the required government reports, etc.

Even payroll. There are no secrets in a small company. Everyone knows how the company's doing, what everyone else is making. And that "knowledge" is always better based on real data than hearsay -- simply because, regardless of the situation, the real data is always better than the hearsay.

Where I've used "let" in the past few paragraphs -- replace that with "expect". Set the expectation that your employees will be moving among the jobs in your company. A few employees will look forward to the prospect. Many employees will feel threatened by it. Some will bide their time and learn to enjoy it. Others will feel overly threatened -- and leave. Let them! Those are the one's that are so fearful of change that they will become unyielding obstacles when change you must.

Not all employees will like all jobs -- or become competent in them. From my experience, they'll realize it about the same time you realize it. Don't leave them there. Move them on. Just chalk it up as one job they can't do. But don't look at it -- or let them look at it -- as "failure".

There's nothing written in the heavens that says everyone should like and be good at everything. What you're trying to do is to let people find out what they like and what they're good at -- and you're trying to find that out too.

So who's going to do all this "training"? Why the employees themselves of course. Who knows the job better than the person who's been doing it? Another expectation -- that the employees doing a job are responsible for writing up and maintaining a written description of that job!

You'll be amazed at how good these descriptions become as each employee "improves" the writeup they've been given. And you'll find that not only the writeups improve -- but the manner of doing the job itself. The writeups give the employee a direct way to improve the way the job is done.

Now all this cross-training does good things for your employees. You can take great pride when one of your assemblers discovers he's very good at purchasing, loves dealing with vendors -- and finds a job with a bigger company at significantly better pay. Or better yet, if he's a superstar, spins out on his own and, with your help, convinces a group of companies -- maybe including your own -- to let him do the buying for the whole group.

But it's also done good things for your company. You no longer have employees so "key" that their absence -- or their leaving -- causes major disruptions in your operations. And you've gained a climate of change so necessary in today's business world. Every employee is continuously looking at how to improve the job they're doing -- not because of dictum, but because it's built into the job itself. You haven't "empowered" your employees -- you simply haven't taken away the power they came with!

You've also gained a basis for a fair and objective pay system. For example, weight the jobs by their "worth" to the company. A job that only a couple of employees can do competently, and none "very well", would get a top weighting. One that most everyone can do and is quick to learn would get a weighting near the bottom. Then weight each employee according to their ability to do each job (e.g., from "can't do" to does "very well"). The product-sum of those weightings gives you a pretty good measure of each employee's "worth" to the company -- and one that can be explained and justified to them -- and their pay should obviously bear some relationship to that "worth".

What about the superstar -- the super salesman... or super purchasing agent... or superstar engineer. If he's really a superstar and you're really concerned that you'll go under if you lose him, make him an equal partner. (After all, you've just defined that you don't have a business without him.)

If you decide that he's just not quite that much of a superstar, then do what we alluded to earlier. Face up to the fact that you're not going to be able to keep him. Money will, at best, keep him only a short time. Unless you can keep him stimulated and challenged -- which is unlikely unless you have a very fast growing company -- it's just a matter of time until you lose him.

So help him make it as an entrepreneur. Encourage him and help him to spin out on his own, doing what he's doing so well for you, for a group of companies -- hopefully still including yours. That way you're likely to retain access to his talent. Otherwise, he's gone -- possibly to both your and his detriment.

One caution in all of this: This system encourages employees to make their own decisions. But you can't ask people to make their own decisions -- and then come down hard on them when they make a bad decision. They're going to make mistakes. In a sense, you want them to make mistakes -- people learn from their mistakes, not from their successes. But you're going to have to live with and clean up after their mistakes.

But the alternative is you making all the decisions -- and you don't have time for that (and there's the legitimate question whether all your decisions really would be "better"). In any event, your "job" is figuring out what the company should be doing in the future -- both internally and externally -- not in handling all the day-to-day details. It's awfully hard to see the forest when you're in the middle of it.

Conclusion