What Are the Major Motivating Factors for Employees' Satisfaction?

Yes, many candidates first look at your compensation and benefits packages when they enter your organization. Just as stated in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, people first satisfies their basic needs and most often, for employees it is financial. Some graduates initially look for jobs that are relevant to their chosen courses or career. But in the long run, as they get frustrated for not being hired, they then turn to find jobs that would at least give them work experiences and income. During those trying times, they resort to working in BPOs (Business Processes Organizations. This kind of industry offers high initial salary as well as very good benefits. But you will still wonder why the lifespan or most of the BPO employees would only stay for just a year or two. These are the very same reasons why many BPOs think of so much programs that would satisfy their employees i.e. dress-down, piped-in music, free vitamins, free flowing coffees, sleeping quarters and a lot, lot more incentives. Yet still, they don't stay for good.

The reasons are because... one(1) their job is not really their first interest. People are happy when they are working on what they love. Usually, it's what they have taken during their college days. Work becomes stressful if their heart is not on it. Thus, hiring nurses for call center agents would not ensure their commitments. Right fit for the right position. Two (2) or second reason, the generation of graduates nowadays wanted diversity, challenges, travels and continuous development. Without it, they tend to get bored and do the job-hopping. With a lot of good offers, international exposures, for sure they would consider transferring organization. Unlike the generations of their parents, job security was the foremost necessity in finding a job. This results to changes in culture. Three (3) or third reason as I may say is that employees want growth and development in terms of their chosen career. When their interest, needs and values are met, you can be assured that they will stay if not for good, at least for the longest possible time.

I have seen employees staying for good or very long in cooperatives (particularly in the financial sector). In my stay in this industry (which is not very long, since 2012) I was able to identify some factors that made employees stay. During our consultancy diagnostics and by conducting climate surveys, there are two (2) vivid factors that makes the employees stay - "Family Culture" and "Social Contributions". What do I mean by these?

Family Culture - Cooperatives are owned by the members and governed by the members. Because of these traits, many cooperatives allow their employees to become members as well. Thus, they enjoy the benefits given to regular members. Their families in turn are also members, if not regular, are associate members. Since they own the organization, they care for the organization and they treat each member well like part of their families. Everybody pitch-in to make the cooperative grow. They are happy receiving dividends from their shares and they can avail loans in times of need. They are taught how to manage their finances and save. They gain the values of giving cooperation to the organization. People in the cooperatives sector, most often than not, abhor aggressive behaviors. Almost everybody are accommodating.

Social Contribution - Since the members are the most important reasons for the cooperatives' existence, most of the activities done by the organization is geared towards community development, helping people by the people. Those employees in turn learns to be happy, contributing to the organization, as well as the community at large. The feeling of growth and being able to help warms their heart and thus, they stay. I think this is also what other companies are trying to achieve in creating programs that are covered in their Corporate Social Responsibilities or CSR. This trait is second nature to cooperatives. And this may also be the reason why some cooperative employees who have left the coops returns to the same industry.

What I have learned in the cooperative sector is that Values and Principles are better influencers to ensure commitment among the organization's members.

HR Management for Cooperatives

This article was first written and posted in my LinkedIn account. It was published on June 11, 2014 at LinkedIn

It has been more than two years since I transferred from the corporate sector to the cooperative. It was a fulfilling journey because I finally found an organization where you actually work with the people and for the people.

Cooperatives are owned by its members and at the end of the year, a successful financial cooperative benefits not only a few but the majority of its members. Now, the challenges of cooperatives though is that when they grow, the demands for efficiency increases to serve its members well. Quality service needs improvement as well as the products and services offered by the financial cooperative. When you say product, I refer to the time deposits and savings to name a few.

Another thing that must be given much consideration is the values taught by the cooperative to its members. When coops are small, it is quite easy to transfer the values that embodies the organization. However, when they grow, the senior members find difficulty transferring the culture that their founders have established the organization with. So the question of succession planning comes into light.

Looking at the cooperatives in Quebec, succession programs or plans are not an issue. Because the confederation and primary cooperatives in this province of Canada has a massive source of manpower pool and human resource pool. If there is enough sources of capable management sources, succession program is not so essential. The culture of the Filipinos though differentiate the requirement for succession programs. In our cooperatives, we want the future leaders be taken from internal pool of the organization so as to ensure that the values of the cooperative is sustained.

Another challenge for HR in the coop sector is the organizational structure. In our consultancy, we introduce the centralization of functions by creating a head office where most of the decisions (for operations) would be coming from the head office. This would result to specialization and providing more time for the branches to serve their members more. More time for members, equates to better service. However, most of the cooperatives are not yet in that stage and would still have to transition to this setup. Thus, there are lots of work opportunities for HR practitioners, handling or managing changes, as well as developing processes in performance management.

These are just few of the HR requirements in the cooperative sector in our country. I am happy to have this opportunity to work for a dynamic organization like this. It is about time for our new HRM graduates to consider working for the cooperative sector and not just be limited with the opportunities offered in the corporations. Learning is abundant in cooperatives.

What Does It Take to Become a Consultant?

There’s a lot of perks in becoming a consultant: travel, meeting people & networking, and the joy of sharing what you know through coaching & mentoring. What will it take for you to become a consultant? EXPERTISE. You need to be an expert on specific fields of your interest. Thus, if you are currently at the lowest step in your career, don’t despair. Make sure that you are really at the threshold of what you really want to do until you mature on that position.

Specialize, you have to learn the ins and outs of your trade and treat it as an investment to your future. You cannot share what you don’t have, and you cannot save if you don’t know how to swim. Learn your personal strengths, harness it and make sure that you fully understand and know how to use the process.

Consultancy is very similar to a doctor’s profession. You are expected to have the answers to questions, specifically to the fields of your expertise. Prior to coaching & mentoring, you would have to fully understand what needs to be solved. Therefore, you have to learn how to diagnose the needs of your clients. As an HR consultant, I start by identifying the different areas in the HR Department, the processes, the functions and the skills required from the HR personnel. I also have to understand the market trend or what is happening in other industries related to my field of expertise. Then I go back to my client and make an assessment, benchmarking them with the best practices on the HR trade.

I have mentioned the need to understanding the market trend or what the best practices are. Becoming a consultant, you need to continuously learn and study. Learning never stops. Age and maturity is not a limitation for a consultant. The more you age, the more the perception of maturity and your clients would think that you have gained enough number of years of experience on your field.

So if you want to go into that direction – becoming a consultant, then those I have mentioned are your investments. It would take a lot of patience, time, effort and interest. If your heart is in what you are doing, then it will not feel that long of a wait.