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Microsoft Misunderstands Employee Motivation.

Posted on 2nd October 2022

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This article on Tech.co reports on how Microsoft is telling companies that they should “re-recruit” and "re-onboard" employees to prevent them from job-hopping and quiet quitting.

At first glance it appears that Microsoft are suggesting that staff be fired and then re-employed (a technique being increasingly used to reduce salaries and change contracts), but, in fact, that is not what is being suggested. The idea is that, for staff to be effective and motivated, especially in the era of remote and hybrid work, they need their skills boosted with more training.

Whilst this, in principle, sounds OK, it shows that Microsoft does not really understand staff motivation.

There is a well established theory of staff motivation, unfortunately not widely applied, which divides motivating factors into positive and negative motivators. Positive motivators are things that are essential for workers to do their jobs: adequate salary, an office (with adequate heating/air-conditioning), a computer or other work tools and the necessary training to do the job. Negative motivators are not things that will demotivate staff if they are absent, but rather non-essential things that will not motivate staff unless all the positive motivators are satisfied: a break room, an office newsletter, work social events and team-building activities. A company car is only a positive motivator in jobs where a car is essential, like travelling salesmen and civil engineers. Companies are wasting their money if they spend on negative motivators without first investing in all the positive motivators.

Job-specific training is generally classified as a positive motivator, when given at the start of employment, because it is usually essentially for the job. When given later, however, it is a negative motivator, because the employee clearly knows how to do the job, having already been doing it. Just because an employer labels it “re-recruiting” or "re-onboarding" does not change the employees' perception of the training as non-essential.

What all this means is that the strategy of branding retraining as “re-recruiting” or "re-onboarding" will not motivate staff, which is what Microsoft believes it will do. It is time for Microsoft managers to go back to school themselves, before mandating it for staff.