With limitations of funding, organizational capacity and structure, many non-profits struggle to retain and promote talent. Positions are often funding or project based and there’s not a lot of room for promotion and succession planning. With a cap on wage increase in every role, salary range revision is also quite infrequent. Under these circumstances, training and development are important incentives and motivators for staff retention, ensuring staff update their skill sets and stay relevant.
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Job enrichment is another essential tool available to managers to support their teams in staying motivated and engaged by increasing the scope of given roles.
This adds variety to mundane everyday tasks, and makes routines more interesting, expands skill sets, encourages independence and enhances overall job satisfaction. Role enrichment can make jobs more rewarding and add value to work.
Here are some of the ways you can enrich the roles of your teams:
Problem Solving
Offer employees the opportunity to bring solutions rather than be a part of the problem. This can be done through delegation to develop certain employees who show promise and potential for promotion. Or simply by team sessions where challenges are identified and input for out-of-the-box solutions is brainstormed.
Mentoring
The only thing you take away from your workplace is your experience and training. Having a system in place where team members can identify areas of future interest within organizations and then be given time off during unproductive hours to learn from a mentor is a great opportunity to develop a diverse skill base, support succession planning, reduce down time, enhance productivity and utilities diverse skill sets optimally. Team members with expertise can be offered mentoring opportunities thus acknowledging their hard work, experience and team contribution in an informal hierarchy.
Delegation
Appointing senior employees to assist managers with occasional tasks or delegating certain periodic responsibilities such as report writing, follow-ups, etc. adds a layer of meaningful work to their job responsibilities. It eases the manager’s load and adds value to the roles of staff who have valuable work experience and contributions. However, their efforts and contributions also need to be acknowledged to their satisfaction. In the long run this must be accompanied with a wage increase and eventual promotion.
Value Addition
Encourage team members to analyze their job descriptions to identify the value they add with their work. Look beyond the daily tasks and responsibilities and focus on the positive change they bring in the workplace and community with the work they do. This would not only increase their job satisfaction but also see the relevance of their work in a new light, adding pride and value to their contributions.
