Autonomy Drives Employee Well-being
My first corporate job was at a large life insurance company as a clerk coding premium payments. I was 19-years-old. I’d only had a couple of other clerical jobs prior to getting this job and had never worked in a large organization.
As you can imagine, a job coding premium payments wasn’t particularly demanding. Each day, a pile of envelopes would appear on my desk. I opened them and coded each of the checks for payment on the insurance policy. They were then sent to the punch card room (I know, I’m dating myself), where they were included in an overnight batch for processing. The next day, I reviewed the work for exceptions or rejects. And so, it went - day after day, after day. It should be no surprise that after about six months I was bored. Once I became bored, I became disengaged.
I had no say in how this work was done. I was one of six people doing this type of work. We all did it following the same set of processes. There was nowhere for me to be creative, demonstrate any additional skills, or for that matter, grow.
Today, employees want meaningful work that motivates them and is fulfilling. In his book “Drive”, Daniel Pink describes three dimensions that motivate people to do their best work: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Autonomy is the extent to which an employee has discretion to do the tasks of their job. When an employee has that sense of agency over their work, they will be more likely to feel ownership for the work, feel empowered and trusted, and feel committed to the organization.
I know you might be thinking - not every job can have complete autonomy. Take for example, a call center. In a typical call center, agents are responsible for answering a specific number of calls a day and often with a specific script or following a process. What might happen if each agent was given a stand/sit desk. While they are still expected to answer the targeted number of calls, they get to choose when they wanted to stand, and when they wanted to sit. This simple change can give the agents a sense of autonomy and control over their work environment, resulting in increased job satisfaction and engagement.
Employee well-being improves when employees feel a sense of control and autonomy in their work. By thinking creatively about job design, we can improve both employee well-being and engagement.
