What Motivates Employees?

by Kristin Munson

Andrew Siegel decided to start looking at best practices for employee engagement. For many in the HR field, balancing the buzzword-heavy realities of “multi-generational workplaces,” “talent management,” “creation of culture” and “employee engagement,” his attention to the subject couldn’t have been more timely. As president and CEO of PayDay HCM, while the company developed processes and participated in strategy circles to improve the experiences of clients, Siegel returned again and again to the same questions: What motivates our employees? Why do our employees come to work? How can our employees make a difference in people’s lives? What he discovered in his research, however, was that, while companies invest millions of dollars into improving their client experience, very few make a commitment to improving the employee experience. Siegel set out to change that.

Southwest-based service bureau Payday HCM set out to improve the employee experience, from hire to retire. Companies taking advantage of the day-to-day employee/employer relationship have the best results in their product advancements.

What resulted for PayDay HCM was a multi-directional engagement process that energizes employees, improves communication, promotes collaboration and facilitates cultural alignment with company goals — and, most recently, winning the coveted “Best Places to Work” title. Using this model, other companies can also develop processes for how the company sets itself apart from its competition by recruiting wisely, onboarding seamlessly, administering benefits easily, paying accurately, training carefully and giving timely and consistent feedback to employees. Payday HCM’s ability to attract and retain top talent affects not only client’s experiences but also the company’s bottom line, and growing small- and medium-sized businesses can replicate Payday HCM’s success.

As Payday HR Consulting Division Director, Richard Valdez was recently quoted: “Without the right people in your organization, your business is nothing but a warehouse for supplies and equipment. It’s the people that make the real difference. It’s the people who differentiate your organization from your competition.”

Taking that philosophy to clients was not a difficult sell. Clients who had come to rely on Payday HCM for professional HR consulting, payroll, benefits, or time and attendance tracking already looked to Payday HCM as an industry expert on employee management. For most clients, adopting the engagement piece, and using the tools to develop employees so they perform to their fullest potential, became an organizational goal. For example, employee engagement tools will soon help employees stay connected, share ideas, seek help and collaborate. Employers improve productivity; find, retain and develop top talent; and reward innovation and success.

Payday HCM’s differentiation platform became the lens through which other services are viewed to help employees reach their individual potential. As Siegel says, “Even if you have a full-time HR manager, you can feel overwhelmed by the tasks associated with personnel management and with reporting and payroll matters. But, as onerous as those tasks can be, they are only part of the ‘people’ side of operating a business.” 

Siegel and Valdez are co-authors on a new book with the working title Engagement, How to Win the Best Places to Work Award. 

Established in 1985, Payday HCM offers nearly 1,500 businesses support in the human resources administration of more than 40,000 client employees. Our clients are nationwide, with local offices in Albuquerque, N.M.; Phoenix, Ariz.; and Denver, Colo. Payday HCM is a partner in the iSolved Network, the revolutionary single-source platform for Payroll, HR, Time and Benefits and more. For more information, please visit PaydayHCM.com.

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