Non-Profit Organizations Are Concerned About Costs

Interview: Talk to someone in an organization about what you read about. Ask them whether their experiences are consistent with the ideas presented in the readings, how the ideas might be useful in their work, etc. (This modality should include your own assessment of what you learned in the interview in addition to reporting the contents of the interview.)

This week’s readings made me think about the psyche of the employee. The readings also made me realize the many ways of motivating, innovating, and engaging employees to make an organization stronger. It is not that hard to retain your employees, while recruiting new ones, if an organization delivers incentives and rewards.

As a class, we have become immersed in organizational culture and the core components of a positive culture, which includes shared beliefs and values. Now, I am more inclined to learn about employee benefits, retention, motivation, and innovation. For this interview, I reached out to a friend who works for a non-profit organization. His organization draws a lot of talented individuals who are mostly right out of undergrad. Unfortunately, they often look to move forward in their professional lives by changing jobs more frequently than he would like. As a result, he finds it hard to keep his employees for the long haul.

I asked him these questions after describing this week’s readings to him:

Interviewer:
Organizations have seen a falloff of leadership from baby boomer employees (Erickson, 2010; Meister & Willyerd, 2010). How do you think the Generation X and Y workforce has impacted the non-profit industry? Are younger generations more involved with non-profit work than baby boomers?

Participant:
The boomer employee is important to a non-profit. An experienced fundraiser is a thing of joy! The ups and downs of bringing cash in and managing the droughts is a job for a seasoned employee. The generation X and Y workforce brings mad information technology skill sets. These are the skills that propel a company forward and upward in these cash strapped days. Boomers don’t always understand the potential of social media and if so, get out of the way. Generation X and Y—you’re hired!


Interviewer:
It has been said that baby boomers lack encouragement to do their jobs well today because they instill an old mindset (Erickson, 2010; Meister & Willyerd, 2010). Do you think younger employees bring an enhanced energy and newfound drive to your organization?

Participant:
Sure they bring energy and it’s refreshing. Younger employees want to do things their way. Younger employees take shortcuts that decrease their efficiency. For example, they are updating the website on the admin panel, they think they have completed the work, but don’t check the actual website to see if the update is appearing correctly. These young people are really smart and have minds for entrepreneurship; but they have to combine real work experience with their book sense.

Interviewer:
Motivating employees can be incredibly intricate (Nohria, Groysberg, & Lee, 2008). How do you keep the younger employees happy? Do you publicly recognize, incentivize, or reward their achievements (Nohria et al., 2008)?

Participant:
Happy? Are you kidding me? What universe does this question come from? The work is challenging and is its own reward. It is an honor to work for us. If I have to keep you happy, get the heck out of here.

Interviewer:
Your organization has quite a few unpaid interns. You hope to make them full-time employees once space becomes available, but how do keep them productive when they aren’t paid? “Studies have similarly shown that greater employee involvement leads to higher productivity and quality” (Heymann & Barrera, 2010, p. 2). Is this true for you?

Participant:
Having quite a few unpaid interns is a recipe for disaster. We wouldn’t have interns waiting for full-time work. Either we can afford them or we can’t. We don’t believe in having people work and not get paid; except for volunteers at conference time.

Interviewer:
Motivated individuals are moved by inspiring leaders to perform better at work (Ryan & Deci, 2000). How would you respond if you acknowledge an employee who seems unmotivated?

Participant:
If an employee seems unmotivated, he/she doesn’t belong in our organization. Motivation comes from within. If you want to work in our company, be an asset! Are you aware that we are in a recession and jobs are in short supply? That employee should find a way to motivate him or herself.

Interviewer:
In closing, how do you motivate your young employees to become leaders when research shows that at least 25% of top earners in organizations plan to leave their jobs for better ones (Martin & Schmidt, 2010)? Would a talent-development program work? (Martin & Schmidt, 2010)?


Participant:
If a young employee wants to become a leader one thing they can do is emulate me. Do what I do. If talent-development programs mean having a mentor; then I do believe in this. It is important to have someone to show you the ropes and how to climb. A mentor will prevent you from making costly mistakes and speed your rise.

The contents of the interview suggest that the participant does not agree with this week’s readings. Further, the participant believes that organizational culture is not as important as research suggests. Organizational culture does not exist within the participant’s organization. It is understood that if an employee does not want to be a part of the non-profit, then the employee should either deal with the existing environment or leave.

The organization does not bend to accommodate the employee, especially when the employee is not viewed of as a permanent fixture. One thing that stands out, however, is that the participant thinks baby boomers are better employees than generation x or y, with exception to new technology like social media skills. Baby boomers are thought of as employees who do not care about the direction of the organization and just want their paycheck (Erickson, 2010; Meister & Willyerd, 2010). Young employees today look for notches on their resume belt. This organization prefers to do anything to keep costs down.


References

Erickson, T. (2010). The leaders we need now. Harvard Business Review, 11-15.
Heymann, J., & Barrera, M. (2010). Engaging employees in the company's profits and their own. Harvard Business School, 1-28.
Martin, J., & Schmidt, C. (2010). How to keep your top talent. Harvard Business
Review, 3-9.
Meister, J., & Willyerd, K. (2010). Mentoring millennials. Harvard Business
Review, 17-20.
Nohria, N., Groysberg, B. & Lee, L. (2008). Employee motivation: A powerful new model. Harvard Business Review, 1-7.
Ryan, R. & Deci, E. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 54-67.