In this episode of the Future of Work Hub’s In Conversation podcast, Lucy Lewis sits down with Barry Schwartz, emeritus Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore College and Visiting Professor at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley.
Barry draws on 50 years of research at the intersection of psychology, behavioural economics and business to explore what motivates people at work. They discuss how fostering meaningful work and autonomy offer significant opportunities for organisations to unlock better outcomes and why trust – rather than rules and incentives – should be the foundation of effective leadership.
Key takeaways
- Prioritise meaningful work. The long-standing Industrial Age belief that pay is the primary motivator to work still shapes how many organisations design jobs, yet research shows that people do their best work when they are given autonomy, opportunities to think and collaborate, and feel that their work matters.
- Create an employee proposition grounded in what people actually want from work. Engage in open, ongoing dialogue to understand what motivates employees and remain flexible as expectations shift amid economic uncertainty and technological disruption.
- Make wellbeing intrinsic to job design. Organisations often focus wellbeing offerings on peripheral benefits rather than addressing what happens at the workplace itself. Move wellbeing in from the fringes by building autonomy, meaning and appropriate levels of responsibility into job design.
- Give employees real autonomy to unlock frontline workforce insights and better workforce engagement. Command-and-control models lead managers to prioritise authority over empowerment, even when this comes at the cost of the bottom line. Create genuine opportunities for employees to use their judgment. Foster trust and mutual respect with the workforce to unlock the wisdom of those closest to day-today operations.
- Embrace "good enough" to reduce decision overwhelm. While choice and autonomy are essential to wellbeing, too much choice between workplace tools, technologies and pathways can overwhelm employees. Delegate decisions to trusted colleagues and use feedback mechanisms between leadership and employees to continuously adjust and maintain the right balance for your workforce.
