Keys To Job Satisfaction
by David G. Jensen, Search Masters International
Occasionally I run into a manager who still thinks of headhunting as an old "gumshoe" approach in which key employees are lured behind potted palms to discuss wild offers of impressive stature and dramatic salary increases. But the scenarios have changed, and the better employers no longer have to "lure" job candidates. In fact I can recall very few situations in which a client company has successfully attracted good people into their employ simply as a result of salary.
Typically the company losing a good employee finds out that the departure resulted from `'a lack of challenge" or that the former employee `'just needed something more." The reasons offered in exit interviews always seem a bit hazier than the old "offer I couldn't refuse" response. This frustrates managers because they realize that they may have been able to do something to save the employee early on.
We experienced this scenario recently. A bright young scientist called us from a well-known biotechnology company, the kind of place where good science is known to be the order of the day. Our organization had placed this fellow, but now he seemed to feel that it wasn't the right place for him after all.
"I don't know what has happened" he said, "but I'm just not happy with the work I'm doing. Over the past six or eight months something's gone wrong. I really don't like the rut that I have fallen into." As we discussed his particular situation further, I realized that this fellow was experiencing job satisfaction problems that would require some cooperation from his employer.
The Roots of Job Satisfaction
After studying employment issues for a number of years and watching some candidates slip into situations like the one mentioned, I've come to the conclusion that staying happy with one employer is a difficult task. It can be managed, however, when both employee and employer recognize the symptoms of dissatisfaction.
Some people change jobs every two years as religiously as they put on new steel-belted radials. To avoid those changes, it is important to recognize how dissatisfaction begins and learn how to prevent it. No matter what you call the resulting problems -- `'plateauing'' and `'burnout'' are two current terms -- most of the job dissatisfaction among biotechnologists stems from their need for a continuous diet of new professional experiences. Although this need is present in any career, it seems to be particularly pressing in creative vocations like science and engineering.
The needs and priorities of creative employees seem to differ dramatically from those of workers in older, less innovative industries. With the right environmental factors, for example, an employee producing widgets of some kind can be productive and happy for years while doing a repetitive daily task. But a cell biologist who has to run the same assay for more than a week will be screaming for relief! Here is a working definition of job satisfaction that we've come up with for this industry: Job satisfaction is a sense of personal growth most often measured by the extent of new challenges and "learning situations" experienced.
People who have spent years developing a specific area of expertise find that they need to be learning something new throughout each stage of their career. When the learning process slows and the job becomes more and more repetitive, trouble begins.
Challenge/Mastery Shuttle
Olympic athlete and sports psychologist Robert Kriegel, who wrote the book Inner Skiing, believes that all individuals who have perfected their skills in one area, whether on the ski slope or in the lab, deal daily with what he calls the "Challenge /Mastery Shuttle." His work describes several "zones" in which we work during the course of a work day. They include the "challenge zone" and the "mastery zone." Some people seem to prefer the constantly changing, risk-taking atmosphere of the challenge zone, while others enjoy the benefits of the studied approach to mastering a particular skill. For most people, however, a mixture of the two appears best. Kriegel describes this as "the ability to shuttle between new challenges and areas of mastery."
It is when there is too much of one or another that we experience difficulties. Many biotechnology companies place so much emphasis on getting new products through the pipeline and into the marketplace that they create a nonstop challenge zone for the employees. After all, this is new turf for most biotechnologists, who find that challenges and their resulting pressure situations come one after another. Creative employees enjoy the learning process, but if challenges continue without respite, they have no opportunity to develop their personal areas of mastery -- which leads them right into what Kriegel calls the "panic zone."
The panic zone is an uncomfortable place to find yourself. It is an unproductive, hectic environment filled with people who make kneejerk decisions. Unfortunately, many organizations that push their people through rapid change find their staff in the panic zone quite a bit more than anyone would like. Too many daily challenges, leading to the panic zone, can be one of the key reasons behind employee departures. The panic zone lies at one extreme of the job satisfaction scale and allows too little time for employee "mastery."
At the opposite end of the scale from the panic zone lies what Robert Kriegel calls the "drone zone." Kriegel believes that too much emphasis on mastery of a particular skill can lead to a sudden and quite unexpected feeling of job dissatisfaction stemming from boredom. Although it can sometimes feel great to escape the rapids of the panic zone for the slower waters of mastering a particular scientific or engineering task, it is the opportunity to shuttle between challenge and mastery that keeps a job interesting. Quite frankly, I would say that the top reasons for job changes in today's biotech industry are that companies are not offering their employees enough opportunity to experience new learning situations or enough time to further develop their personal areas of mastery.
The Half Life of Knowledge
The scientist we spoke of earlier had a definite problem. He had gone from a position as an individual contributor, in a company where his work was 95% science, to a supervisory post at a new company. Although his new job included some bench work, a very high percentage of his time went to administrative responsibilities; the paperwork and meetings had become a nightmare. Suddenly, he came face to face with the fear that his technical skills would soon become obsolete.
His concern was real. A concept called "the half-life of knowledge" illustrates the reason. Albert Shapiro, in Managing Professional People (Free Press, 1985) describes it as "the time after completion of training when, because of new developments, practicing professionals have become roughly half as competent as they were upon graduation to meet the demands of their profession." Shapiro states that for scientists and engineers this half-life can be as short as five years.
Organizations owe it to their employees to keep them fresh and challenged, and there are certainly lots of ways to do that. In the case of the aforementioned scientist/supervisor, his company went to special lengths to help him with his problem. At our suggestion, the fellow pursued an adjunct professorship program that his company sponsored with a major university. He was able to grow scientifically as well as to develop and improve his administrative ability. Surprisingly, several months later, he chose to stay on his company's management ladder.
Preventative Maintenance
Companies do not hesitate to protect their investment in capital equipment and instruments. They go to extreme lengths to maintain their devices and update them when new software or design changes threaten to make them obsolete. And yet these same companies ignore the preventive maintenance required so that their single greatest investment, their people, grow and remain healthy and happy in the organization for years.
What does it take? Managers should take a close look at their people to see that all of them have a fair percentage of new challenges and personal time to master individual areas of interest. Continuing education remains one of the best ways to enhance employee satisfaction. Some companies take this one step further by offering programs through which an employee can make a dramatic shift in career direction. One pharmaceutical company client offers technical employees from science or engineering an opportunity to take on a fully paid law program in order to become much-needed patent attorneys.
Regardless of whether your company offers these sorts of special programs or whether you look for ideas on your own, keep the challenge/mastery shuttle working for you in your career. It leads straight to the top.
Author:
Dave Jensen
500 Foothills South, Suite 2
Sedona, AZ 86336
To reach Search Masters International, contact
career@searchmastersinternational.com
(630) 663-9140
Contact the author for reprint permission:
david_g_jensen@yahoo.com