Joe Schmoe's Results

Autonomy is an APPROACH

Employee satisfaction in careers depends on how work gets done, not just the nature of the work performed. The same job at different organizations or in different situations can lead to drastically different levels of productivity and worker satisfaction. Understanding how employees want to do their work is key to maximizing productivity, satisfaction, and retention.

Two people can fill a role effectively but can approach their work very differently. Their success and happiness depend largely on their ability to work in the most effective way for them. As an employer, you are looking for a good fit between how potential employees like to approach their work, and how the job at your organization actually gets done, or how much room (or responsibility) the employee has in shaping how their work gets done.

Strategic Insights

Someone with autonomy high in their results values being trusted and appreciates having room to figure out their own way of getting things done. Autonomy can lead to a virtuous cycle with intrinsic motivation – intrinsically motivated employees respond most positively to autonomy, and when given that autonomy they then become more motivated.

Autonomy is deeply intertwined with ownership and trust. Autonomy is the level of discretion employees have over their work and how they do it. The higher the skill level needed for a job, the more autonomy the employee has. Being an expert at something has many perks, and one of them is higher levels of autonomy. Studies show that workers who have high levels of autonomy in their job tend to have better job performance and satisfaction, organizational commitment, lower work-related stress, less fatigue, and more intrinsic motivation.

Autonomy is largely decided by three things: what position an employee occupies within the organization, what type of work they do (surgeon, firefighter, customer service rep, etc.), and who their manager is. Some jobs and positions tend to naturally allow more autonomy, but even in the seemingly best of positions, a micromanaging manager can destroy an employee’s sense of autonomy.

Workers who have autonomy very high in their wants are likely to succeed in jobs where their performance is outcome-based, and their work processes don’t rely on high levels of constant coordination. It’s also worth noting that autonomy doesn’t necessarily mean working alone (though it can). High functioning and close-knit teams can still have high levels of individual, and team, autonomy. Employees who desire autonomy are looking for a role where their tasks are relatively self-contained, and levels of trust are high.

Things to Consider for Fit with a Position

• How is success measured in this role?
• Who else would the worker in this role need to work with to be successful?
• Who else in the organization can do this role? (Often roles that cannot be done by others have higher levels of autonomy—whether that’s being the organization data-wizard, tax accountant, or courier. If nobody else can/will do it, it’s harder to micromanage them.)

Evaluation Questions

This section provides a series of questions, tailored to the tested attributes, that will help you as you recruit top talent, work to retain valued team members, and develop a more effective work culture.

Tell me about your ideal boss?

Candidates who value autonomy highly often recognize the need for leadership, but it is worth understanding how they see themselves interacting with management. Their answer will help you assess their fit within your organization.

How would you (insert task here)?

People who value autonomy need the latitude to do things their way but that doesn’t always mean that everyone understands how to do things well. Gaining insight into how they would approach their job and problem-solve will help you evaluate their ability to be productively self-directed.

Can you describe a situation when you realized that you needed support or direction from a supervisor, and how did you recognize the need for help? How did you get it?

It is imperative for workers who prize autonomy to be able to recognize when they are in over their heads. Probing to see if a candidate possesses that ability will help you make better hiring decisions.

Strategic Insights

With location high in a person’s report, it is important to them that they consider not only who their employer is but also where they are working. The physical environment we work in can have a tremendous impact on our creativity, productivity, and even our mental health. Some people want to work in big cities, others small towns. Maybe living near family for the time being, or having some physical distance, is critical to their professional success. A commute to work may help them focus, or it may be a burden. All of this can change over time. If this is something they have scored high on, then have very open and honest conversations upfront about what they’re looking for and about what you can offer.

Another key, but often overlooked, aspect of our work lives is the aesthetic of our work environment. For individuals with location high in their results, things like how their workspace is decorated, the temperature of the office, or even the "style" or "vibe" might have a profound impact on their ability to thrive at work. Having some leeway to decorate their own space can also be a big boon. This may seem frivolous to some managers, but it’s actually very reasonable. People who are working full-time spend more of their waking life at work than they do in their own homes. It can make a big difference.

Covid-19 is changing the calculus of work and location. A 2021 Harvard study found that of those working remotely, only 12% wanted to go back to working in the office every day as they did before. The rest (88%) want to either stay fully remote or end up in a hybrid situation where they work remotely a few days a week and in the office a few days a week.

Even before Covid-19, there was research showing that “homeworking” is associated with increases in employee well-being and more balanced work-home relationships, which are associated with happier more productive employees and lower turnover. The good news is that even with these changes, after the first four months of transition, productivity has kept pace with, or exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

When a person scores high on location it does not necessarily mean that they either want to work remotely or would rather not. They might prefer either one and because of the last few years, they are likely to have more options to find a good fit than they did pre-Covid. So now it’s not just whether they like their work location, it may be whether they like a work location at all. This is all pretty new territory. Even if an employee is working from home, they will need to spend some time and effort creating a physical location that helps them achieve their work and personal goals. If this is something that matters to them you can buy a lot of goodwill, and some extra productivity, if you offer some money for furniture or technology to help them better arrange their remote/home work situation.

For many in the youngest generation of workers, those in their teens and early 20s, there seem to be more benefits to at least initially working in person, instead of remotely. A recent Microsoft study found that most (but not all) Gen Z employees are not as well served by remote work as those in the older generations. Networking, mentorship, and training are easier in person. Compounding that is the fact that often workers at this age don’t have enough money to build a good work-from-home location, and many are without families of their own or tight social structures. Remote work, therefore, can rob them of built-in social connections and be incredibly isolating. Everyone’s situation is different, but location is worth more thought than many give it.

Some may love the fast pace of a hectic and creative open office. Some may love the peace of their own office, with a door between them and the world. Others would rather live in a cabin with their family and get their work done over satellite internet. Even post-Covid, all in-person work offices aren’t going to die, workers will just have more choices. Increasingly, employees will have more opportunities to craft not just the career they want, but the location and nature of the life they want to lead. Taking a proactive approach to their location can be central to that.

Things to Consider for Fit with a Position

• If this is in-person work, ask them what they most value about being at work in person and what their ideal office setup would be.
• Where do most of the team live? Does that match what they are looking for?
• What is the commute like (train, walking, biking)?

Evaluation Questions

This section provides a series of questions, tailored to the tested attributes, that will help you as you recruit top talent, work to retain valued team members, and develop a more effective work culture.

What is your favorite thing about (insert city/town)?

Preference for a given location can be based on a myriad of features. Proximity to family, weather, nightlife, culture, recreation, and entertainment to name just a few. Understanding why a person is attached to a certain location can be predictive of likely employment longevity.

Can you describe your ideal workspace?

Our physical environment can have a profound impact on our well-being and mood. Doing the same job in an office rather than in a cubical or where we see others frequently rather than in seclusion can make all the difference to our sense of fulfillment. For someone who tests high in Location, this could be the difference between a great job and a terrible one. If you have some showpiece work locations, show them.

How did you decide you wanted to live here?

Asking someone to relive their decisions helps them put into words what was likely a subconscious process. This allows them to learn about their own preferences and help you determine if they are a good long-term fit for your organization.

Strategic Insights

A person with collaboration high in their results is often an excellent match for roles where they get to be part of a team. In the sports world, they are more basketball than cross-country. They would rather be part of a band than a solo singer-songwriter. It is useful to find those who value high levels of collaboration because some of the jobs that people assume are the most mundane receive some of the highest levels of job satisfaction. Why? It’s often because the people in those jobs get to work closely with others as part of a team, and that’s what they end up enjoying the most.

Having collaboration in their top three means that this person wants to be part of a larger process and contributing to a team is a large part of what motivates them. They can get beyond some of the more mundane tasks if they feel connected to the larger team and process. Managers should make sure these employees are actually working on team projects rather than working alongside a bunch of people doing their own thing with very little interaction. We’re social creatures, and we love to achieve things together. This is especially true for those scoring high on collaboration.

Things to Consider for Fit with a Position

• Will the person in this position primarily work alone or will they work closely with others on a team?
• Find other people who have this position and ask them what they like most about their job. See if anything related to “the people they work with” shows up. If so, that’s an excellent clue that this is might be a good position for someone scoring high on collaboration.
• What do you know about the team they would be working on? How often do they see each other and work together? How socially functional is it?

Evaluation Questions

This section provides a series of questions, tailored to the tested attributes, that will help you as you recruit top talent, work to retain valued team members, and develop a more effective work culture.

Describe your ideal workflow?

Collaboration can signal a high degree of value in the “process.” Often those who value collaboration describe their job as a series of tasks and responsibilities and how they interact with the overall operation of the business. They tend to be less focused on the outcome (that is not to say the outcome isn’t important to them). To ensure a candidate is a good fit with your team you need to learn how they like to work. This question can help with that.

When working on a team, who is ultimately responsible for the outcome? Who should receive credit or blame for the results of a project?

Ownership of an idea and its outcome is important. Those who value collaboration are often good contributors to group conversations. Their willingness to accept responsibility or share praise for coauthored work varies. Understanding these motivators will help you manage them more effectively.

If you were given a solo project that you did not know how to do, how would you get it done?

Sometimes those who value collaboration struggle to work solo. If you are looking for someone to perform tasks on their own, you need to understand how they’ll go about accomplishing the task at hand. Collaboration signals a propensity to work with others, but it is also a common attribute of great networkers. Asking this question will help you strategize with the employee and understand how their skill set can be used to bring others together to solve a problem.

Strategic Insights

Often in early careers, as well as when we are changing industries or job functions, training can be one of the most valuable forms of compensation. Training is an investment. It can be valuable both monetarily and for long-term progress. Professional training is, on some level, why we go to university and accept apprenticeships or internships. With training high in their results, an employee might be at a time in their career where gaining access to expertise is valuable to them. They will appreciate positions where they will get quality mentorship and have access to learning "insiders' tricks," even if this training comes at the cost of a larger starting salary, an impressive title, or other desirable outcomes. (See their other highs and lows to figure out what their optimum tradeoffs are).

While many focus on the external benefits of their current job, these employees focus more on the internal. Rather than simply giving them things of value, they want a job that will make them more valuable. This can obviously pay great dividends in the future and putting a little more thought as a manager into their developmental process is good practice anyway. Studies show that we are constantly seeing ourselves on a path towards our “ideal self.” Though we may not talk about it a lot, we do care about it, and a job that they feel is clearly helping them to move in that direction is a job where they are happier and less likely to leave.

The extrinsic motivations for training are easy to explain. More skills generally equate to greater monetary reward down the line. It’s not just the external benefits though. When one feels like they are improving in something, they feel better about themselves, and for good reason. They’re succeeding on their path towards a more ideal self! In a sense, when a job is successfully helping them to develop, they are better today than they were yesterday, and this means a lot to them. Training may be formal, through workshops, tuition reimbursement, or certifications, or informal, through challenging but achievable goals that require the employee to learn new things and get better at old things to succeed.

Advice is only as good as the person giving it. Try to be thoughtful about who this person will learn from. The mentor-mentee relationship is one of the most powerful in business. Choosing the right mentor can accelerate their career rapidly. Just as selecting the wrong trainer can set them back.

Things to Consider for Fit with a Position

• Do you offer any (meaningful) training programs for new hires? Who would they be working with and how valuable is that to them?
• Are senior members of the organization available to advise newer employees?
• If they have questions or want feedback on my performance, to whom should they direct their questions? Can you officially put people in positions to always be an open ear to this kind of training and feedback?

Evaluation Questions

This section provides a series of questions, tailored to the tested attributes, that will help you as you recruit top talent, work to retain valued team members, and develop a more effective work culture.

What would make an excellent mentor?

An individual who values training often finds that training through an individual mentor. Asking what attributes make for a good mentor will help you determine how/if you can offer the support they need.

What do you feel is our role in preparing you for (insert job title) and what is your responsibility to prepare yourself?

Receiving support is important but some skills are developed through trial and error. It is important to understand the proper balance within your organization and for those you work with to be well positioned to succeed in that environment. This question helps start a conversation about the organization’s responsibility to train and the individual’s responsibility to learn.

If you feel unprepared for an assignment I give you in the future, how will you let me know that you need more guidance?

Communication is critical, especially when someone is looking for training. This question will facilitate a conversation about how you can communicate needs and expectations as the relationship develops.

Strategic Insights

Having remuneration at the bottom of their results table does not mean that this person doesn’t care about money. We all need money. What is suggested by this result is that after meeting their basic needs and personal financial goals, how much money they make takes a backseat to other forms of compensation. They might prefer to be “paid” with more time with family, a friendly work environment, or a prestigious title.

A study from Princeton University found that having a higher income increases happiness only up to about $80,000 per year. Beyond that, higher pay doesn’t influence our happiness very much, and other things start to matter more. This finding has been replicated multiple times. Most people think that being rich will make them happy. Relatedly, most people making $80,000 a year don’t feel rich, but studies show they are just as likely to be happy as people who are making much more money. A person with remuneration low on their list is free to prioritize other values.

Employers often love the idea of having remuneration low in their report, for obvious reasons. But don’t make the mistake of thinking it just means you can pay them less. It primarily means that they care about other things more, so if you’re able to provide the things that are high on their list, enjoy the fact that right now they don’t require as much money to be satisfied.

Strategic Insights

We give a little more detail in this “low” section than usual because sometimes people are concerned about seeing a “low” on leadership. Having leadership at the bottom of their results does not at all mean that they would be a poor leader. What it suggests is that they are someone who can succeed even if their supervisor is not the best. They are more ok with being their own inspiration and feel fairly self-motivated. With their ability to work even without strong leadership, you don't need to be as concerned with the quality of their leadership team.

The most important things that management/leadership can provide for people are motivation, culture, training, and coordination. People scoring low on leadership will still be able to do well in situations where they are excited to work with those on their team, where the culture is already pretty good, where they can train themselves to do what they will be asked to do, and in areas where they are intrinsically motivated. 80% of employees say they could do their work without a manager. These employees just know this upfront! So, if you have a position that suffers due to a deficit in leadership, just make sure the employee can supply those four things for themself, and they might be a good fit.

Strategic Insights

Scoring low on flexibility often is coupled with having a relatively high score on predictability. An excellent example here is many government jobs. Virtually all federal/state/local government positions have firm start and end times, combined with good vacation/sick policies, healthcare, and retirement, which allows employees to plan. The very same positions in the private sector may come with more flexibility, but also have a way of taking over people’s lives, keeping them late at work, and providing them less time for other things. Many lawyers, for instance, opt for jobs with the government because they can have a good income and still be home at a reasonable and predictable time every day. These types of positions can be something of a template for successful positions for those few people scoring low on flexibility.

Many people prefer jobs with rigid time-in/time-out requirements because it gives them a reliable schedule. The right non-flexible job can provide a wonderful work-life balance for certain people. Structure allows them to compartmentalize and give more to each aspect of their life.

Strategic Insights

A person scoring low in sociability is not necessarily bad at socializing. This score does not give you secret insight into who might be a jerk. Nor does it mean that this person works best alone. What it means is that they do not require as much social interaction to be fulfilled at work. With sociability low in their rankings this person might not be greatly impacted by relationships with their co-workers or is ok working more independently. Office politics are likely to have less impact on their life unless it makes getting the job done more difficult. They can be considered for employment that is remote, or independent, with more confidence than most.

Sociability is one of the rarest attributes to find in the bottom of someone’s results. Interacting with others helps us achieve a degree of personal satisfaction. This person is likely getting their social connections elsewhere. That said, there may be some benefit to occasionally going out of your way to help them feel welcomed and valued as a member of the team. Even those who aren’t looking for a lot of sociability at work want to feel respected and valued. This is particularly true if they are in a leadership position.

Strategic Insights

First off, everybody likes a change of pace from time to time. Having variety low in their report doesn’t mean that this person likes boredom or monotony. What it does say is that they want to know what they’re going to do at work, be able to prepare well for it, and become good at it. High variety positions often preclude people from becoming particularly good at any one thing. Positions where they have a good idea of what they will be doing from day to day are more predictable and allow them to become better at specific things and feel confident that they are doing a good job.

Predictable jobs are less likely to cause people to feel anxious, as well. Expected outcomes are generally clearer and so they can look forward to what they’re going to do at work with some surety, and they’re more likely to get quite good at it. There are many benefits to having stability at work.

Low variety positions are where experts are forged. Virtually every single Olympian has a very low variety job. Yet it’s thrilling, they are extremely good at what they do, and they are openly admired by others for it. Low variety overlaps well with specialization. Try to get some sense of what this person wants to be an expert at. Over time the employee will gravitate toward the things they really enjoy and will stick around long enough to become an expert.