What is discretionary effort?
Discretionary effort is the level of effort people could give if they wanted to that is above and beyond the minimum required. Most organisations only motivate employees to do just enough to get by. They provide no incentives for people to do more than the minimum required for them to do their job.
Tapping into the discretionary efforts of your team can make a different. It can help the people enjoy what they are doing. It will encourage them to go above and beyond the minimum that is required. Discretionary effort can make the difference between a great team and an extraordinary team.
How do you inspire discretionary effort in your team
This will largely depend on the working environment and while some of it will come from the organisation culture as a whole (e.g. the incentives that are in place to encourage your employees to work harder such as a bonus scheme) there are also simple things that can be done at team level to help provide a supportive and impactful environment.
1. Give Your employees/team a reason
Give your employees a reason for going that extra mile in their job. As mentioned above the most common method that employer’s use to achieve this is through pay and a bonus scheme. However, this still means that their reason for going that extra mile is directly tied to monetary compensation. This may backfire if the targets are not achievable, or your company has a reputation for not paying out any bonuses in practice. Also once the threshold is achieved, further effort may not be inspired.
Therefore a more inspiring solution may be to focus on the impact that the work has. The success/motivation behind the work being done. If someone has an intrinsic drive to achieve or exceed their objectives, it’s going to be much easier to inspire the discretionary effort required to do that.
2. Provide the necessary tools and support
You need to enable your team to give the extra effort. This might be:
- providing them with tools and skills.
- providing them with the support that helps them push the change through the business or with senior management.
- giving them the time or autonomy that they need to help motivate them and drive them forward.
- encourage collaboration and support between team members / peers.
3. Show appreciation
If an employee puts in an extra effort, and that effort isn’t recognized or appreciated, they will quickly lose motivation. If they get the same response (i.e., none) for making a contribution that you would for barely meeting expectations there is no incentive for them to put in extra effort.
Show your appreciation and recognise the discretionary effect that your team are putting in. Postively reward efforts and contribitions and encourage similar efforts. You should also encourage everyone on the team to show their appreciation for the work of their peers.
Show appreciation.Give positive reinforcement on a regular basis to encourage a culture of discretionary effort (not just a one-off). Take the time to understand your teams motivations (everyone will be different) and encourage each individual on your team in their own way.