Paul Bassat, Joint CEO, Seek Ltd, on Employee motivation and engagement

I have noticed all through my professional life that there is just one common denominator for success across all organisations, and that is motivated employees.

If an organisation does not have motivated employees, no amount of investment in other resources can overcome this gap. On the other hand, if it has motivated employees, all other challenges seem surmountable.

If this is almost a truism, then why are so many organisations still struggling with it? What is that elusive ‘X’ factor that motivates employees but is so difficult to define, capture or practice?

Each leader has his or her individual theory on how to motivate people. Some consider rewards, recognition, even money as the greatest motivator. Others believe in mentorship. Still others – hopefully a minority - actually subscribe to the fear factor.

My belief is that I cannot motivate anybody. That is simply because I believe everybody has to motivate themselves. What I can do is to create an environment that will encourage this. And that is where my philosophy of Employee First comes in. For, if management is accountable to employees, it automatically creates a culture conducive to self-motivated employees.

At Tianjin, this was one of the points of discussion as well. I would like to share with you here the views of Paul Bassat, Joint CEO, Seek Ltd. as we spoke to him on the sides of one such meeting. This is what he had to say.

Employee motivation and engagement is about an open and transparent relationship between the organization and employees, according to Paul, who also agrees that there is no magic formula. It is a two way relationship, he says, where employees are accountable to managers who are accountable in terms of helping them achieve their career objectives.

It’s about attracting people who are passionate about what they do into the organization and creating an environment where people can be motivated and really believe in what they do.

I truly believe that this organisational environment is the critical piece that completes the jigsaw of business success. The four P’s of marketing—Price, Product, Promotion and Placement—cannot create strong and lasting customer relationships without the fifth P, which stands, of course, for People, or should I say, passionate, engaged and committed people.

I would love to read what you think once you have listened to Paul’s views in the accompanying video.