HRpedia: 'Discretionary effort'

Discretionary effort, n.

Those of us who’ve been in or around HR for years will recognise that industry themes – one might reasonably call some of them fads – come and go. There was a time when HR seemed entirely about equal opportunities; then diversity; then the employer brand; then HR metrics.

For a year or two these themes are so monumentally important that for a conference or magazine to ignore them would be inconceivable. Then, almost overnight, they’re elbowed aside by something else that’s somehow more compelling, much as Cabbage Patch Dolls replaced Rubik’s Cubes, which replaced Tracey Islands, which replaced hula hoops, and so on back to the Jacob’s Ladder.

When a recession hits, and people management is obliged to occupy itself with squeezing more output out of fewer assets, what language does it use to make the new theme seem more humane? The vogue for the last few years has been engagement, which effectively is productivity seen through a sympathetic lens. And the commercially useful output of engagement is discretionary effort.

Definitions abound. Business Dictionary offers us ‘[the] Difference in the level of effort one is capable of bringing to an activity or a task, and the effort required only to get by or make do.’ In other words, it’s the stuff employees don’t have to do, but it would be good if they did, as doing so would aid productivity/improve profits.

Candy crushed enthusiasm

In practice, this generally means working (and probably not being paid for) longer hours, making smarter decisions by caring more about outcomes, getting more stuff ‘right-first-time’, making more efficient use of resources and not spending seven hours a day playing Candy Crush at your desk whilst pretending to be filling in spreadsheets.

To encourage your people to do more, it’s a question of pursuing tried-and-tested engagement techniques. Reward them for good results rather than just punishing them for under-performance. Explain the organisational strategy, and how their effort contributes towards it. Engage in dialogue – listening as well as talking – about how to improve working practices. Communicate results regularly and honestly, and make recognition a key part of that communication.

(ASDA used to award lapel pins to those individuals who had gone ‘Above and Beyond the Call of Duty’. It might sound naff, but those ABCD pins were worn with real pride.)

Perhaps the biggest disincentive regarding discretionary effort is employees not seeing the point of it. They need to see how it affects them positively (remuneration?) and how it improves the organisation and the world at large (pride?) rather than just seeing it add another roll of notes to the owners’/shareholders’ hungry pockets.

So, a good place to start: if you were on the frontline and not trying that hard, what would make you give that little more?

About the author

Andrew Baird

Andrew is the CEO of HRville. He is also Employer Brand Director of Blackbridge Communications, Editorial Director of Professionals in Law and an associate of The Smarty Train. Previously, he was the MD of TCS Advertising.