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HRO Today Forum Europe Preview Empowering Employees Simple steps to take to get the most of your workforce. By Debbie Bolla Jamil Quershi has an interesting perspective of the workforce. As one of today's foremost practitioners of performance enhancing psychology, he has consulted CEOs, board-level executives, and middle management to develop and deliver leadership programmes for Coca Cola, Emirates Airlines, Serco, Orange, and HP. HRO Today Global sat down with him to glean a better understanding of employee motivation. A new Gallup poll reports that 70 per cent of the workforce is unengaged and underperforming in their job. Why do you think this is the state of the workforce today? It is unfortunate that many employers have still not realised the opportunity to maximise their people's talent by understanding the fundamentals of human motivation. We still spend huge amounts of time and money devising good pension plans, bonus structures, and recognition schemes instead of truly understanding the aspirations and wants of people in the workplace. Once we grasp the idea that people perform best when there is a sense of purpose, things will change. Purpose is never achieved—it is attained on a daily basis. People have to lose themselves to something—something that is bigger than themselves to help them achieve a sense of contribution. When employers tell me that their employees don't act as they want them to, I ask them if the why of [8] HRO TODAY GLOBAL | AUTUMN 2013 their employees' work is big enough. What do employers do to inadvertently encourage uninspired employees? The carrot and stick approach does not work. Gone are the days of "if-then" rewards. Formulaic management and some benefit styles that haven't changed much since the 1950s are still commonplace, but the psychology of the worker has changed dramatically. An employer needs to champion the idea of creating an environment and communities based on peer coaching, challenging employees, learning through knowledge sharing, and a sense of betterment. If not, we are simply heading towards Charles Handy's definition of the disengaged worker. What he envisioned was a man in the empty raincoat with nothing to offer apart from being a commodity that creates raw economic data. How can this change? A transformation can occur if organisations build their culture around the following guidelines: Employees need autonomy. Employees thrive if they believe they are in charge of their direction and growth opportunites, and are trusted to make the right decisions. Employees need a sense of value. Job titles, job