The other day I saw this YouTube explaining what motivates us and why some of us work better than others. I know what you’re thinking: money! duh! Yes and no. What I got out of this video was a single thought:

What motivates us? Purpose.

If we don’t have a purpose and we’re not contributing to the greater human good- we don’t perform as well as others. I’ll let you watch the video.

I’m going to tell you a rather interesting story while I worked at FedEx Ground. Or you can just skip this part since you’ve already seen the video. I dealt with our inbound operation- for about 4 years. I know, what in the world is Alison Foxall, a designer, doing in a place like that? It started out as just a job for college, but quickly grew into MUCH more- so much more that even though I’ve been gone from the place for quite some time now- it remains an active part of my life.

Let’s skip over some personal stories involving FedEx Ground and move into when I was a manager at a smaller facility about 40 miles south of Tampa. At the time I loved FedEx- I lived and breathed it, had a blast working, hitting out goals, and competing with others to be the “best.” FXG is very competitive in that way- especially in the Florida region. Not only were we competitive inside the facility, we competed with other facilities in the region, and the region as a whole competed with regions around the nation. All to do one very simple thing: to provide an outstanding FedEx experience as outlined in the Purple Promise.

Being competitive sure did drive me. Until I was the best. I took a new building, with co-worker Jared Hall, and we turned it into a pretty damn good building with what we had, in as little as a few months with a full staff that was quite untrained. Money was not motivating. I was making a lot more freelancing on the side than I was at FXG. So when I had no competition, especially within in the building- what was motivating me? I had a purpose. I made a goal for myself: Package Handler retention.

FedEx Ground has one of the worst turn-over rates. I’ve seen people quit in an hour. Others have quit right at orientation. Most popular is they won’t come back the next day. Some manage to stay one week, then quit. Why do people quit jobs in the beginning? Usually it’s one or two things: Management or the job really does suck that bad.

Before I became a manager I observed the problem: management. You can’t exactly train a person in a job if you’re not a good teacher- no matter how good you are at the job- if you suck at teaching, you’re going to suck at training. So the problem was that these new people were not being engaged- they didn’t know what to do.

Now let’s get to the other problem: the job sucks. This is a matter of opinion. I loved the job personally. I didn’t have to talk to hundreds of customers going in and out of the door- or deal with snobby customers, or homeless people (when I worked at 7-11). Plus I was getting a work out (loading) while getting paid.

But back to the main deal- I’m getting side tracked. So the job some-what sucks, and management was not engaging. I had my purpose and motivation for working there again. I wanted to retain package handlers. I wanted to make them like working there, and I didn’t want any new hire quitting on the first day or week. I’m happy to report that this never happened to me. Although that may have been due to the different location I was in, and the current state of the market (not a lot of jobs).

I engaged them, made friends, all while making sure we were hitting our goals. One of the basis was building a team. They all had to gel together – like a football team. I remember watching the Tampa Bay Bucs with practically all new players and only a few vets, it was very difficult to not only win games, but to just play together in general. And it showed. The only way I was going to build my team was to have retention, train constantly, and follow up constantly with them. People aren’t going to work as well if they hate their boss- I know because I’ve been there. So back to the job sucking- that was a constant reminder having to wake up around 3am everyday. I made sure all my people knew about all the programs available to them through FedEx to save money- a major incentive to working there, which goes back to the monetary value talked about in the video. Problem for FedEx is working at 10 bucks an hour starting pay was not that great for doing this type of work. It was okay, but not nearly enough to provide motivation for people.

When I was a package handler, in the beginning it was money- but then it got really boring, and there were no challenges to the job. I found motivation through my old manager Ateeq Zahir. I worked for him and I was motivated to make sure he “approved.” We’ll leave that story alone.

So what’s the story in all this? I found my purpose, my motivation at FedEx later on when money was not why I worked there anymore. I wanted to help. I wasn’t interested in helping shippers or customers receiving packages (I had to do that, it was required), but I was interested in helping my employees. I wanted to help our contractors. I wanted to make sure they had all they needed to succeed and that I could teach them all I knew about the company, all the little tricks and tips and whatnot. I wanted to help make the job suck less. And I did. And then I left. I fulfilled my purpose, and I reached my single goal that I wrote down in my review: Reduce package handler turn-over. I’m proud to say that 60% of the package handlers that started in day 1 when this particular facility opened, were still there when I left. The others left for FT jobs and had nothing to do with the job sucking.

My purpose and motivation remains the same for what I do now. I want to help my clients achieve their goals. I want to contribute to people’s happiness and overall success. Helping.

What is your motivation?

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