Skills, Adjustment, and Motivation: Self-Determination Theory in the Workplace
In a series of unprecedented changes, the pandemic has resulted in a significant loss of corporate performance, management, and employee motivation. While research in the last few years has pointed to remote workers being more productive due to an increase in core work and a decrease in commute and communication, most of the data has referred to workers voluntarily working from home before the coronavirus outbreak. In an interview with Vox, Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University, recently highlighted the lack of choice, connectivity, and preparedness this outbreak has carried with it. Discussing how this would affect the work industry, he stated that the pandemic has and will result in a loss of productivity, motivation, mental well-being, and creativity.
The Self-Determination Theory, developed by psychologists Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, is a broad framework on the study of human motivation. Understanding this framework can help us better adapt to the changing nature of work, especially so now as the pandemic and remote working engender decreased motivation and productivity.
What is the Self-Determination Theory (SDT)?
The SDT describes motivation as a continuum moving from non-autonomous to autonomous forms given that every individual is motivated by a variety of wants and needs rather than a single desire. Under this continuum, extrinsic motivation refers to the behaviour motivated by an external cause/reward whereas intrinsic motivation refers to the behaviour motivated by an internal cause/reward.
According to the Basic Psychological Needs Theory, under SDT, there are three psychological needs necessary for one’s psychological well-being, the fulfilment of which increases intrinsic motivation i.e the willingness to work out of one’s own interest regardless of the external rewards. Through multiple studies, SDT has shown that intrinsic motivation is the strongest predictor of better performance and engagement in any activity.
Serving as nutrients to our psychological health, the needs include:
- Autonomy: “Need to control the course of one’s life.”
- Competence: “Need to be effective in dealing with the environment.”
- Relatedness: “Need to have close and affectionate relationships with others.”
Widely researched in both theoretical and practical terms, the SDT aims to understand how the fulfilment of these needs benefits the workplace. The interaction of SDT and the workplace has in recent years resulted in many interventions, some of which are highly useful to COVID organisational practices.
SDT & Workplace Performance
In a study conducted in 1989, Deci, Connell, and Ryan described a “highly supportive manager” as one who actively listened, acknowledged, encouraged, provided feedback, and was open to receiving so as well. The study highlighted that if suggestions from the SDT were to be applied, an employee’s trust in the company, intrinsic need satisfaction, and perceived support would majorly improve. Another study by Baard, Deci, and Ryan even showed that competence support increased the employee’s ability to adjust to new situations while autonomy support was linked to better performance and self-motivation.
In an article on generating autonomy in the workplace, Heather R Huhman, President of ‘Come Recommended’ emphasised on companies having a strong skill-based recruitment process and focusing on skill development training programs. Similar to this, Skillr’s initiative of encouraging companies to hire through a skill-based algorithm is essential to present times when uncertainty is rampant and adjustment is necessary. By assessing skills such as communication, cognitive flexibility, reliability, grit, and result orientation, the algorithm helps select those candidates who are likely to excel in a specific workplace, thereby promoting feelings of competence and relatedness in employees, leading to improved intrinsic motivation and better performance. For instance, a candidate who scores high on learning agility will be better able to transition into the work-from-home environment with no decrease in productivity or self-perceived competence as compared to a candidate who doesn’t, regardless of the prior experience they both may have listed on a résumé.
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Improve Your Team’s Performance
The Self-Determination Theory lists several practices that can be adopted by companies for better provision of the three psychological needs. Some of them are as listed below:
Tips to improve workplace autonomy:
- Adopt a transformational or authentic leadership style.
- Encourage employees to maintain their own work schedules. This promotes self-management.
- Provide logical and meaningful explanations for your decisions. This helps employees view it as less controlling.
Tips to improve workplace competence:
- Leverage skill-based hiring to pre-empt competence levels of employees
- Provide constructive feedback/actionable points that the employee can improve on.
- Move from optimal-level difficulty to higher-level difficulty tasks. This ensures growth without disturbing the employee’s self-perceived competence.
- When an employee finishes a task, provide verbal or unexpected tangible rewards. Other forms of rewards can actually decrease motivation!
Tips to foster relatedness:
- Initiate bi-weekly or monthly team-building exercises and fun-filled activities.
- Promote an inclusive environment where every employee is shown unconditional positive regard.
- Ask for inputs before any major decision is made. This encourages employees to feel valued by their team.
References
- https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/the-theory/
- http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2004_BaardDeciRyan.pdf
- http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2014_Williams_etal_WorkStress.pdf
