Motivation problems: working with “burnt out” employees
For the last six years I have been doing projects in banking IT, and during this time I have often met with the fact that the main risk of the project has become “burned out” employees. Project rhythm and a large flow of tasks cause irritation in such people, so their “crucifying” often becomes one of the main tasks of the project manager.
To understand why such people appear in the organization, consider the model of development of a specialist, built on the parameters of "skill / motivation." I took the basis for it from the model of situational leadership and developed it a bit, based on practical observations. This model is needed to understand at what stage of the "life cycle" can be on our project, and how this affects their motivation.
Stage 1 - a little experience, a lot of enthusiasm (low skill, high motivation) . This may be a young specialist who got the first job; a person who has decided to try himself in a new profession or a professional who has been promoted to a management position. In general, any of the options when a person has just come to a new place really wants to succeed, but does not yet understand how to do it.
')
At this stage, there is usually a person who has just signed up for the gym: he definitely decided that he would go there several times a week, lose weight, build up muscles, and this time he would go on a beautiful and fit holiday.
Stage 2 - the first disappointment (low skill, low motivation) . At this stage, our specialist comes to understand that everything is not as simple as it seemed to him initially. He makes the first mistakes, succeeds immediately fails, and most importantly - comes the understanding that the path to the summit is very long and not at all as simple as it seemed at first.
Returning to our metaphor, this is the time when, after a week or two of the gym, you understand that your muscles hurt, you don’t lose weight every day, and your body after a hard day’s work, it turns out, doesn’t exercise, but relax and drink beer with friends or colleagues .
Stage 3 - natural growth (skill grows, motivation is different) . If a specialist succeeds in overcoming the previous stage, he enters the path of professional growth. Here it is already clear what needs to be done for development, it is also clear that the path to success lies through long methodical work. This stage is usually quite long, with its black and white stripes, so there is no one level of motivation on it, the only thing that can be said is that it usually suffices to continue moving forward.
Fitness enthusiasts at this stage set a regular schedule for visiting the gym, so regular progress begins in the medium term.
Stage 4 - competent specialist (high skill, strong motivation) . At this stage, the specialist goes to the plateau of competence, and can begin to perform tasks autonomously (in the case of fitness - without a coach), gradually expanding his area of responsibility and helping novice specialists. Ideally, after working for some time in this mode and preparing a replacement for themselves, the employee goes on increasing and returns to the first stage, starting a new round of his career spiral.
In real life, unfortunately, this is often not the case. New posts are not always available, and the absence of any candidates for this post does not allow to educate yourself a worthy replacement, so the next stage begins.
Stage 5 is an overly competent specialist . That condition which is well described by the English word “overqualified” and means a noticeable discrepancy between the competence of a specialist and the needs of his position or organization in principle. The state is characterized by a constant decrease in motivation, due to the lack of a positive connection from performing complex, interesting tasks. After some time, a decrease in motivation leads to disappointment from work, and a shift in priority from work to something else (hobby, family, third-party projects). Typical external signs: a person begins to work strictly according to schedule, and when they meet, they will no longer talk about their work, but about something that has taken its place in the system of priorities.
Here I want to make one more important note: the person at this stage does not necessarily work badly. On typical tasks, a lack of motivation from a good specialist is compensated by a high level of professionalism . Problems begin if complex tasks arise that require an exit from the comfort zone; in this case, the opposite behavior will be observed - instead of labor enthusiasm, there is aversion or even resistance. This is because solving problems that are beyond the scope of competence requires a high place in the system of priorities, and the place is already occupied by something else. The expectations of the management begin to diverge from the behavior of the employee, they begin to push the employee, which demotivates him even more.
The final, sixth stage of this process will be professional degradation, and a person from the state “can, but does not want” enters the state “does not want and cannot”. Such employees are either reduced by regular staff optimization, or they end up in paper-based positions with a low level of responsibility.
According to my observations, such a cycle takes from 3 to 10 years, depending on the complexity of the subject area.
Let us now turn to the peculiarities of the labor market in the banking sector (I assume that my conclusions will be valid for a number of other areas). It has several prominent features:
In this situation, the typical manager tries to find a person who is at the stage of a “competent specialist”, that is, someone who can immediately and efficiently carry out the assigned tasks. Sometimes they are even looking for a person with a deliberately high qualification in order to “accurately manage”.
Unfortunately for employers, “competent specialists” themselves are almost not looking for a new job. This is explained quite simply: the desire to change jobs usually occurs when the motivation has already decreased , i.e. when a person is already in the fifth stage.
Another bad news: by itself, the effect of novelty causes an employee temporary growth of enthusiasm - it usually lasts for several months, which in Russian conditions just allows you to pass a probationary period. After that, a person realizes that here “the same eggs, only the highest paid ones” start to get bored.
So it turns out that attempts to hire a ready-made specialist usually end with the appearance of a new “burned out” employee in the organization. Therefore, I would like to give hiring managers the following advice: when you take a new employee, make sure that he has something to learn.
What should the project manager do when confronted with a “burnt” employee?
First , it is important to properly assess the situation. Make sure that the person is really at the stage of "burnout". Perhaps there is another reason.
Example: in one bank, they started a project to introduce a new functionality for credit cards in the Internet bank. Functionality is know-how, there are no direct analogues on the market. The signing of the specification is seriously delayed - the responsible person from the product development department must make a number of key decisions, but he constantly evades this, saying that he needs to “first discuss everything with his colleagues.” Other departments do not have such problems, decisions are made by authorized persons quickly. He is a very experienced specialist - he is about 45 years old, of which ten he has been working at this bank, he now holds the position of card product development manager.
Is this man burned out? Quite possible. In order to be sure of this, it is best to personally speak with him and with his superiors. It is worthwhile to act directly, but tactfully - to describe the facts (“delay in terms of signing the specification”) and your vision of solving the problem (“you need to make decisions on specific issues faster”). Answers need to listen carefully, in any case not getting involved in disputes. Our goal is to make a diagnosis, not to convince a person that he is wrong.
In our example, it turned out that only one month ago this specialist was transferred to this department with an increase - before that, he had held the position of manager of another, less complex product in the same department for five years. Unfortunately, the management could not identify a more experienced specialist for parallel participation in meetings, so our hero has to discuss the details of the project with his colleagues in the evenings in order to be able to make the right decisions.
If we didn’t understand the situation and tried to “crush” a person who already works well without it, then in the end, instead of increasing productivity, we would get spoiled relations.
Secondly , if you are convinced that the person has “burned out”, highlight this problem before the sponsors and try to get it replaced. Try to explain that a less experienced, but more motivated person will be more useful for the project, and a more experienced colleague can be left as a consultant.
You do not need to try to deal with the problem yourself (yes, motivation is the task of the project manager, but not everyone can be motivated), all the more you don’t need to hide it. Use the same control methods as for other risks.
Third , try not to make a personal problem out of the project problem. Professional burnout is a person’s misfortune, not his evil intent towards you. In the heat of the project, it is easy to hate a person who regularly puts you in the wheel, but this does not improve your condition or team morale.
Last , try to find an alternative motivation for such a person. This is quite a difficult task, but there are cases when its solution is worth the effort - for example, if the function performed by this specialist is critical for the project, and there are no chances for it to be replaced.
Such an alternative could be, for example, a more dense involvement of him in the team. Remember that even if a person is not very interested in a project by itself (there is no intrinsic motivation), but he feels part of the team and respects her - he will try to match (external motivation will appear).
And most importantly - watch yourself and try not to burn out yourself. Good luck!
To understand why such people appear in the organization, consider the model of development of a specialist, built on the parameters of "skill / motivation." I took the basis for it from the model of situational leadership and developed it a bit, based on practical observations. This model is needed to understand at what stage of the "life cycle" can be on our project, and how this affects their motivation.
Stage 1 - a little experience, a lot of enthusiasm (low skill, high motivation) . This may be a young specialist who got the first job; a person who has decided to try himself in a new profession or a professional who has been promoted to a management position. In general, any of the options when a person has just come to a new place really wants to succeed, but does not yet understand how to do it.
')
At this stage, there is usually a person who has just signed up for the gym: he definitely decided that he would go there several times a week, lose weight, build up muscles, and this time he would go on a beautiful and fit holiday.
Stage 2 - the first disappointment (low skill, low motivation) . At this stage, our specialist comes to understand that everything is not as simple as it seemed to him initially. He makes the first mistakes, succeeds immediately fails, and most importantly - comes the understanding that the path to the summit is very long and not at all as simple as it seemed at first.
Returning to our metaphor, this is the time when, after a week or two of the gym, you understand that your muscles hurt, you don’t lose weight every day, and your body after a hard day’s work, it turns out, doesn’t exercise, but relax and drink beer with friends or colleagues .
Stage 3 - natural growth (skill grows, motivation is different) . If a specialist succeeds in overcoming the previous stage, he enters the path of professional growth. Here it is already clear what needs to be done for development, it is also clear that the path to success lies through long methodical work. This stage is usually quite long, with its black and white stripes, so there is no one level of motivation on it, the only thing that can be said is that it usually suffices to continue moving forward.
Fitness enthusiasts at this stage set a regular schedule for visiting the gym, so regular progress begins in the medium term.
Stage 4 - competent specialist (high skill, strong motivation) . At this stage, the specialist goes to the plateau of competence, and can begin to perform tasks autonomously (in the case of fitness - without a coach), gradually expanding his area of responsibility and helping novice specialists. Ideally, after working for some time in this mode and preparing a replacement for themselves, the employee goes on increasing and returns to the first stage, starting a new round of his career spiral.
In real life, unfortunately, this is often not the case. New posts are not always available, and the absence of any candidates for this post does not allow to educate yourself a worthy replacement, so the next stage begins.
Stage 5 is an overly competent specialist . That condition which is well described by the English word “overqualified” and means a noticeable discrepancy between the competence of a specialist and the needs of his position or organization in principle. The state is characterized by a constant decrease in motivation, due to the lack of a positive connection from performing complex, interesting tasks. After some time, a decrease in motivation leads to disappointment from work, and a shift in priority from work to something else (hobby, family, third-party projects). Typical external signs: a person begins to work strictly according to schedule, and when they meet, they will no longer talk about their work, but about something that has taken its place in the system of priorities.
Here I want to make one more important note: the person at this stage does not necessarily work badly. On typical tasks, a lack of motivation from a good specialist is compensated by a high level of professionalism . Problems begin if complex tasks arise that require an exit from the comfort zone; in this case, the opposite behavior will be observed - instead of labor enthusiasm, there is aversion or even resistance. This is because solving problems that are beyond the scope of competence requires a high place in the system of priorities, and the place is already occupied by something else. The expectations of the management begin to diverge from the behavior of the employee, they begin to push the employee, which demotivates him even more.
The final, sixth stage of this process will be professional degradation, and a person from the state “can, but does not want” enters the state “does not want and cannot”. Such employees are either reduced by regular staff optimization, or they end up in paper-based positions with a low level of responsibility.
According to my observations, such a cycle takes from 3 to 10 years, depending on the complexity of the subject area.
Let us now turn to the peculiarities of the labor market in the banking sector (I assume that my conclusions will be valid for a number of other areas). It has several prominent features:
- The cost of the error is quite high, so there is a desire to take specialists with experience, and in the same field.
- Salaries in the industry are quite high, usually there is no need to take inexperienced specialists and raise them yourself.
- There are a large number of places, the competence in which rests on one person - it is usually enough, so he does not have subordinates or <equivalent replacement. The departure of such a person leads to the search for a similar specialist in the market (the vacancy cannot be closed by internal resources).
In this situation, the typical manager tries to find a person who is at the stage of a “competent specialist”, that is, someone who can immediately and efficiently carry out the assigned tasks. Sometimes they are even looking for a person with a deliberately high qualification in order to “accurately manage”.
Unfortunately for employers, “competent specialists” themselves are almost not looking for a new job. This is explained quite simply: the desire to change jobs usually occurs when the motivation has already decreased , i.e. when a person is already in the fifth stage.
Another bad news: by itself, the effect of novelty causes an employee temporary growth of enthusiasm - it usually lasts for several months, which in Russian conditions just allows you to pass a probationary period. After that, a person realizes that here “the same eggs, only the highest paid ones” start to get bored.
So it turns out that attempts to hire a ready-made specialist usually end with the appearance of a new “burned out” employee in the organization. Therefore, I would like to give hiring managers the following advice: when you take a new employee, make sure that he has something to learn.
What should the project manager do when confronted with a “burnt” employee?
First , it is important to properly assess the situation. Make sure that the person is really at the stage of "burnout". Perhaps there is another reason.
Example: in one bank, they started a project to introduce a new functionality for credit cards in the Internet bank. Functionality is know-how, there are no direct analogues on the market. The signing of the specification is seriously delayed - the responsible person from the product development department must make a number of key decisions, but he constantly evades this, saying that he needs to “first discuss everything with his colleagues.” Other departments do not have such problems, decisions are made by authorized persons quickly. He is a very experienced specialist - he is about 45 years old, of which ten he has been working at this bank, he now holds the position of card product development manager.
Is this man burned out? Quite possible. In order to be sure of this, it is best to personally speak with him and with his superiors. It is worthwhile to act directly, but tactfully - to describe the facts (“delay in terms of signing the specification”) and your vision of solving the problem (“you need to make decisions on specific issues faster”). Answers need to listen carefully, in any case not getting involved in disputes. Our goal is to make a diagnosis, not to convince a person that he is wrong.
In our example, it turned out that only one month ago this specialist was transferred to this department with an increase - before that, he had held the position of manager of another, less complex product in the same department for five years. Unfortunately, the management could not identify a more experienced specialist for parallel participation in meetings, so our hero has to discuss the details of the project with his colleagues in the evenings in order to be able to make the right decisions.
If we didn’t understand the situation and tried to “crush” a person who already works well without it, then in the end, instead of increasing productivity, we would get spoiled relations.
Secondly , if you are convinced that the person has “burned out”, highlight this problem before the sponsors and try to get it replaced. Try to explain that a less experienced, but more motivated person will be more useful for the project, and a more experienced colleague can be left as a consultant.
You do not need to try to deal with the problem yourself (yes, motivation is the task of the project manager, but not everyone can be motivated), all the more you don’t need to hide it. Use the same control methods as for other risks.
Third , try not to make a personal problem out of the project problem. Professional burnout is a person’s misfortune, not his evil intent towards you. In the heat of the project, it is easy to hate a person who regularly puts you in the wheel, but this does not improve your condition or team morale.
Last , try to find an alternative motivation for such a person. This is quite a difficult task, but there are cases when its solution is worth the effort - for example, if the function performed by this specialist is critical for the project, and there are no chances for it to be replaced.
Such an alternative could be, for example, a more dense involvement of him in the team. Remember that even if a person is not very interested in a project by itself (there is no intrinsic motivation), but he feels part of the team and respects her - he will try to match (external motivation will appear).
And most importantly - watch yourself and try not to burn out yourself. Good luck!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/213939/
All Articles