Original research is important to us here at Attuned and that’s why we have been working with a team of researchers at Goethe University. We want to start sharing some of the initial findings from this collaboration.
Original research is important to us here at Attuned.
Attuned is based in science, based in research, always pushing further and further to understand intrinsic motivation. The theory of intrinsic motivation, and all its practical implications on our organizations and work lives can be understood much deeper than we collectively understand today.
To that end, we have been working with a team of researchers at Goethe University, specifically Alicia von Schenk who is a Research Assistant at the Department of Management and Microeconomics. This team publishes academic research on an array of related topics, including organizational economics, behavioral economics, employee motivation, how to improve workplace communication and more. We’ve been sharing the unique data set (anonymously of course, with proper data security in place) that Attuned has on intrinsic motivation and employee motivation.
We want to start sharing some of the initial findings from this collaboration.
Regression analysis and research by the Goethe team reveals that:
the timing of when someone begins to use Attuned does not matter, i.e. there appears to be no selection effect
size of team appears to play a role: the smaller the team, the higher the impact of Attuned on employee motivation. The hypothesis being that better targeting can be done at an individual level with smaller teams.
the more important the motivator for the employee, the higher the increase in satisfaction with this motivator over time (Focus on what matters most; Pareto Principle)
the more dissatisfied the employee with a certain motivator, the stronger the impact Attuned has to improve employee morale
Let’s take the three main findings above out of academic-y speak and transform them in to real life examples:
the smaller the team, the higher the impact of Attuned on employee motivation
It’s like if you are new to gardening. If you have a lot of plants and you are trying to understand them, trial and error-ing to know what makes each flourish – sun positioning, how much to water, type of soil to use, etc… – you are probably going to kill a lot of plants. Then having lots of plants, with all these many variables, is just so much to remember. The same is true if you are a new manager; if you have a small team, you are more likely to be able to use the intrinsic motivation insights from Attuned with each member to get them to motivationally flourish.
the more important the motivator for the employee, the higher the increase in satisfaction with this motivator over time
If you really like avocados, you can put more avocados in to your meals. You’ll come away much gastronomically satisfied, much more so if you try to put more truffles, which expert foodies say are delicious, but you think “Not so much” in to your food.
the more dissatisfied the employee with a certain motivator, the stronger the impact Attuned has to improve employee morale
If you have been staying somewhere away from home, and you aren’t getting your usual fix of pleasure-able avocados. Say, the hotel you are at just doesn’t seem to serve avocados, but then all of a sudden they say it is “Avocado Week” and they start serving avocados 4-ways at every meal, your satisfaction is going to shoot way up. Attuned can help managers do this for their team’s, by showing where team members are dissatisfied, and where managers should intervene.
The research with the Goethe University team will continue. We will look deeper into the existing data, collect new original information to cross-pollinate, all to drive us closer to science-backed research on the best strategies for employee motivation.
We are on a mission to help more and more people find meaningful work, empower managers, and empower employees. We’ll do it through humanity, we’ll do it through data, and we’ll do it through more scientific research.
July 9, 2020
By Casey Wahl 
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