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Basic Desires At Work

basic desires at workThis blog post is actually an addition to the last one in which I already encouraged you to explore your basic desires at work – aka your personal needs.

When I recently read Richard P. Finnegan’s “Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad“, I felt reassured that personal needs and desires are really important to drive our career satisfaction. Finnegan creates a link between Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the work environments where employees will stick rather than leave. He argues that the needs in the middle of the pyramid play the biggest role in this context.

The Basic Desires for Work are

  • Safety – The need to be free from the effect of physical or emotional harm
  • Social – The need to interact with others
  • Esteem – The need to feel important

Later, he gives some examples of how first line managers as well as senior leaders can increase talent retention by consistently fulfilling those basic needs of their employees.

However, when I read this, I suddenly also recalled the famous “Gallup Q12“. Back in 2006, the Gallup Institute published a list of 12 statements. According to their research of more than 30 years these statements allow companies to measure the actionable issues for their management in relation to topics like satisfaction, loyalty, pride, engagement, and so on.

In other words, if they score low on these statements, they’re in trouble! Continue reading “Basic Desires At Work”

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Personal Needs – Boon and Bane for your Career

personal needsHow good do you know your most important personal needs? Are you aware of how much they influence your mood and motivation? How much they actually determine your path to becoming successful and satisfied?

You have probably heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow uses the terms Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through while we and our personal situation develop over time. I think his findings are still relevant and they provide a good framework to explore a person’s most important needs in a little bit more detail.

So, what are your most important personal needs? If you can’t answer this question straight away and with total conviction, I suggest you sit back and think about it for a moment. Continue reading “Personal Needs – Boon and Bane for your Career”

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Values At Work – How To Push Back On Job Frustration

A recent global job satisfaction survey by accenture has shown that more and more people feel unsatisfied at work or somehow disconnected from their job. A global average of nearly 60% claim not to be satisfied with their career – and here in Singapore, where I live, the situation is even worse with 76% claiming to be dissatisfied with their jobs (the second lowest result globally!).

Wow, I don’t know what you think but these results really struck me – although the trend didn’t come totally unexpected. I have seen and heard it too often and experienced it myself big time at the end of my 12-year stint with my former employer (a Fortune 500 company).

What makes people unhappy at work?

Of course, the survey results came with a whole bunch of interpretation and analysis naming things like perceived underpayment and lack of growth opportunities as key factors for the low satisfaction rates.

But whatever reasons are stated by the different participants – they all have something in common: They are consciously or sub-consciously linked to the personal value system of each individual. Continue reading “Values At Work – How To Push Back On Job Frustration”