Compensation is no match for worker happiness, as I recently shared, in my post on how best to fill job vacancies. But how does compensation stand up to passion?

Recent research into what compels employee performance is changing our understanding of what motivational techniques are truly most effective. Contained within this research are important implications for staffing firms, corporations and executive search firms struggling with executive level job vacancies.

The video embedded below, courtesy of RSA, cites the aforementioned new research that shows a clear difference in the results achieved when using money as a motivator:


For work that requires only mechanical skill, money motivates better performance, as expected. But when the work to be done requires anything beyond the most rudimentary cognitive skill, the promise of a larger monetary reward for better work actually leads to lower performance.

Once they were compensated fairly, the three primary motivators for an employee became autonomy (functioning independently), mastery (learning new skills), and purpose (working toward a greater goal.)

Combined, these three factors foster an environment where employees are most engaged in their positions and their companies when they feel as though they are:

* Controlling their own destiny
* Improving their personal worth
* Enhancing their own corner of the world

In other words, the perfect formula for passion.

These are the fundamental selling points staffing and HR professionals would do best to remember when filling executive level job vacancies.

Have I left anything out?