The question left me stumped. Despite my nearly 20 years of experience teaching leaders how to cultivate commitment in the workplace, the podcast host conducting the interview caught me off guard with his final question. After a rich 30-minute discussion of all the experiences employees must have at work to trigger commitment, he wanted to tie everything we’d explored into a tidy package for his listeners.
“OK, Joe, let’s get you out of here on this: In one sentence, where does commitment come from at work?”
I paused for what felt like an eternity. What came next was a word salad I’m not terribly proud of. “Well … I can’t give it to you in one sentence,” I said. “As we just talked about, there are a whole bunch of factors.” I then proceeded to recap our entire conversation in the world’s longest run-on sentence.
My answer wasn’t wrong. It just wasn’t concise. That bothered me for weeks afterward. No wonder so many business owners, executives, and managers struggle to keep people motivated at work. Few can articulate a simple framework that clearly outlines the employee experiences required to nurture commitment among workers. I became convinced: The world needs a one-sentence answer to the question “Where does commitment come from at work?”
I set about the task of authoring that one sentence nearly 2 years ago. After analyzing more than 200 studies and articles on employee turnover, testing my findings with my clients and audiences, and synthesizing those findings into a simple framework and a new book, I had my one-sentence answer.
Commitment and retention appear when employees are in their ideal job, doing meaningful work, for a great boss.
Let’s briefly examine these factors and training’s role in each.
1. Ideal Job
The first factor is what I get, as an employee, in exchange for my employment. Do the nuts and bolts of the job—the financials, schedule, workload, and work arrangement—fit into my life in an ideal way? At a time when so many have prioritized working to live over living to work, a job has become one puzzle piece in a larger picture. When it snaps into place perfectly, bringing the rest of the image to life, commitment gains energy.
Though every person is different and there are numerous ingredients to a role being someone’s ideal job, there are three dimensions to the ideal job factor: compensation, workload, and flexibility. As an employee, having adequate to generous compensation; a challenging but not unmanageable workload; and some flexibility around when, where, and how I work directly impacts whether I’ll join an organization and stay long term.
2. Meaningful Work
The second factor is what employees experience in the course of doing their work day in and day out. A nearly endless parade of research over the last three decades has made it clear there are a handful of experiences that have a direct influence on commitment. For example, we know that believing in the mission or purpose of a company holds tremendous sway over employee commitment. So, too, does believing that our individual contributions are valued, as does taking on work that unleashes our unique gifts and creativity.
To compartmentalize many of these findings into something easy to translate, I’ve identified three dimensions to the meaningful work factor: purpose, strengths, and belonging. As an employee, when my work has purpose, my role aligns with my strengths, and I’m an accepted and celebrated member of a team, there’s a much greater likelihood that I’ll develop emotional and psychological commitment to the work.
3. Great Boss
The third factor is the person or people responsible for overseeing an employee’s day-to-day work. Direct supervisors are the single most influential factor in the employee experience. Years of research shows that bosses are one of the biggest reasons someone leaves a job or stays. If employees consistently have a psychologically fulfilling experience in the workplace, it’s because their boss helps facilitate it. In fact, Gallup found that the team leader alone accounts for 70% of the variance in a team’s engagement.
Make no mistake: Commitment comes from better bosses. And there are dozens of things a leader must do well to be a great boss. Genuinely caring about each employee as a person and about their career path is crucial. So are competence, visibility, support, humility, approachability, and vulnerability.
Once again, to create a digestible, usable model, I distilled these dynamics into three dimensions. To earn the label of “great boss,” a leader must engage in coaching, trust, and advocacy. Consistent, quality leadership training is essential for any great boss to hone and master these essential skills and, as a result, improve retention, motivation, and engagement on their team. At work, if my manager regularly engages in coaching conversations, both grants and earns trust, and acts in my best interests consistently (that’s what advocates do), the chances are high that I’ll describe them to others as a great boss.
Happy Employees Are Committed Employees
Learning and development (L&D) plays an important role in the process of engineering these experiences for employees. Educating employees on the vision of the company and the significance of their role in that vision and aligning each individual’s goals to those of the company, for example, are important components of fostering meaningful work. Leaders at all levels need ongoing training and development to develop and sustain the insight and skills needed to become great bosses.
Nearly every story you’ve ever heard about someone leaving a job can be attributed to the three factors of ideal job, meaningful work, and great boss. Drill down on the details of those stories, and you’ll discern the dimensions outlined above within these three factors. The same is true with every story you’ve heard about why someone chooses to take a new job or stay with an organization. Likewise, nearly every piece of credible research on staffing turnover and employee engagement released in recent years, in one way or another, highlights one or more of these dimensions as the contributing or significant factor.
Amid a massive recalibration around how work fits into our lives, the research is clear. The organizations that aren’t struggling to find and keep devoted employees are those that are training, and winning, in these three areas of the employee experience.
Joe Mull is a professional speaker and host of the popular Boss Better Now podcast. He is also the author of three books, including the just released Employalty: How to Ignite Commitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work. For more information, visit joemull.com.