My workplace motivators & performance drivers: Shelley Davies

If you want to create a high-performing workforce, you need to understand what drives every individual on your team: whether that’s their priorities at home, at work, or – as it is for most people – a mix of both. Performance enablement is about identifying what motivates people and recognising how to break down the barriers around those key drivers to allow them to reach their full potential.  

To do this, you need every manager in your organisation to become a coach: one that can have the right conversations with employees to unlock better performance. But making that transformation is easier said than done. When it comes to complex areas like fulfilment, happiness and engagement, managers need to be supported to have open, honest dialogue and produce measurable outcomes. 

It’s why we created the Blend tool: a list of 28+ drivers and motivators that help employees to pinpoint what’s important to them, and provides the basis for productive, measurable 1:1 conversation between managers and their teams. To find out more about how it works, and the benefits it brings, download our guide.

In the meantime, we’ve been asking the OpenBlend team to share their top motivator, and tell us why it’s important to them, its impact on their wellbeing and the difference it makes to their performance.   

In the latest in the series, we catch up with Shelley Davies, our Chief Customer Officer, to hear why fulfilment at work is key to her performance, engagement and happiness in the workplace. 

What is your top motivator at work?  

My top motivator is fulfilment at work.   

Why is it important to you?  

It’s important to me because I want to know that my contributions are making a difference. I like being stretched, and having challenging work gives me a sense of fulfilment. I like to be recognised for my contribution towards progress on outcomes, ideas, experience, and see the difference it makes to the business, my team and my colleagues. 

What impact does it have on your performance?  

When I have fulfilment at work my performance is at its peak. It shows that I’m working at my best and also really enjoying being in that state, too, which makes it great fun. 

How does work support you to achieve/prioritise it?  

My blend sessions with my manager – sometimes weekly, sometimes fortnightly – enable me to have really open discussions and the transparency that this gives means that problems don’t stay around for too long because a proactive and productive conversation has been had to set changes in motion. The same goes for the individual blend conversations with my team, too: it works upwards and downwards for the manager and employee. 

How do you manage the gap between your current and target scores?   

I’m competitive, so I’m always looking to close the gap! It’s a step-by-step process and every conversation takes me closer to my ideal state. The GROW model accommodates the way forward – every action takes you get closer to your target score, so that visibility and ambition is right there, built into the product. 

Is your top motivator the same as it was a year ago? What’s changed?   

I’ve not had any changes to what motivates me. I love the work I do and if it’s fulfilling, then it means I’m at my best and also having a whole lot of fun doing it. 

Understanding what motivates your employees is key to successful performance enablement. Book a demo today to discover how the OpenBlend performance management platform makes it possible for every manager to become a coach, recognising employees’ drivers and motivators to unlock their full potential.