Practice Development Counsel

Lack of leadership/inconsistent leadership
Lack of support or understanding for work and family balance
Different rules for different people – unleveled playing field and chance for opportunity
Hostile/non-trusting work environment
A culture that breeds communication problems and weak feedback processes

Additional de-motivators mentioned include:
"Know it all" colleagues;
Dull managers or leaders who lack vision, will and guts;
A :playing it safe" environment where there are disincentives to experiment or take risks;
Lack of humor;

and in some types of workplaces,
Dress codes.

The factors to avoid listed above hold true for just about any workplace and are of long-standing. The exception is "dress codes" which have become an issue more recently.*

On the flip side, what we should seek to instill more of in the culture and ethos of a firm in order to retain desirable people are motivators such as:
Making people feel valued
Jobs offering achievement and advancement
Recognition for effort and accomplishment ("you get what you reward"). Recognition needs to be a mix of financial and non-financial recognition.
Stimulating work and responsibility

Frederick Herberg, a clinical psychologist who became a Professor of Management at Utah University was known for his Motivator-Hygiene Model. Hygiene factors are those which, if present, cause no dissatisfaction, but they are not motivators. Absence of these, however, can cause dissatisfaction. Examples are jobs with good working conditions and interpersonal relationships with supervisors, good company policies and administration, and good salary.

Another famous study, which has been repeated over and over since the 1940's asked workers to rank the importance of factors. Here is the order we see most often:
Interesting work
Full appreciation of work done
Feelings of being in on things
Job security
Good wages
Promotion and growth in the organization
Good working conditions
Personal loyalty to employees
Tactful discipline
Sympathetic help with personal problems

Larry Kryske, President and Co-founder of Homeport Training & Development, uses a four question quiz to help people measure their job satisfaction:
Is the work challenging and interesting?
Are you recognized and acknowledged for the work you do?
Are you compensated sufficiently for the work you do?
Does your spouse approve of and support your job?

So we see that:
Money isn't all. It is important to find out what each individual values. This is a responsibility of good leaders and managers.
Different age groups may value different things and therefore be motivated by different things.
Maslow's theory still applies: People have to feel secure enough financially and protected physically. Then they are motivated by intangibles.

Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" describes a succession of aspirations by human beings: first physiological needs (food and water); second, physical security; third, love through affection and belonging, followed by esteem (social approval); lastly, "self-actualization" or self-fulfillment. In the workplace, Maslow held, once they had provided for their first and second level needs, people need to belong. In the best instances, they need jobs that help them become everything they are capable of. He wrote, "The only happy people I know are the ones who are working well at something they consider important." To quote Maslow further: "Highly evolved individuals assimilate their work into their identity....Work actually becomes part of the self, part of the worker's definition of himself. You participate in the glory, the pleasure, and the pride of the place."

Thomas Petzinger, Jr., in his book, THE NEW PIONEERS, said he thought Maslow's "most brilliant insight was that people try to give their best when they can see the widest known effects of their actions."
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* A footnote on dress codes:

It is surprising what a high profile the phenomenon has taken on - and so quickly. After annual discussions about casual Fridays during the summer, we now see frequent news stories in the press announcing five-day-a-week casual dress in large firms in major cities. Lawyers with new media clients are told by those clients not to meet with them in a suit and tie (or equivalent).

The issue really is "appropriate" dress. (I had a client firm four years ago that permitted casual dress when not seeing clients or going to court. It was a relatively small firm (about 20 lawyers) with no new media clients, and they felt no need for a press release regarding casual attire. Lawyers' casual dress is not fully accepted as mainstream, even by the legal press - where reporters tend to dress less formally. A National Law Journal headline read: "Casual Dress Germ Spreads," and a report of a firm swinging back to formal dress says one firm "has temporarily put the genie back in the bottle."

Dress codes probably are more off-putting to younger professionals than the older ones who never had alternatives to what was considered a professional appearance.

— Phyllis Weiss Haserot

MOTIVATORS AND DE-MOTIVATORS