The Age, 31 of December 2000

Good morning, workday

In the midst of your holiday reverie, let's think about work and, specifically, what it is that gets you up and going on a workday morning.

Could it be the obvious, the Big M - money?

If you were American, that is highly likely to be the key motivational factor. If you're an Aussie, intriguingly enough, money is a fairly secondary consideration. It's important, certainly, but not at the top of the hit-list.

Rebecca van de Sluys, a consultant with the Barrett Consulting Group, reports that in a recent comparative survey looking at what keeps IJS and Australian salespeople motivated, twice as many Australians re- sponded that what made work fulfilling for them was not money or status but primarily being able to use and expand their skill base: to tackle "new and exciting challenges".

To van de Sluys, this is not such a surprising finding in the new knowledge economy where, to keep ahead, "you need to upskill and develop new talents".

It is also not surprising in the context of a country with so many rich recreational opportunities and diverting ways to squander spare time, that another highly important motivater in choosing a place of work and staying there i! the chance to be able to "have a life tool".

This pragmatism about balancing work with other aspects of life is a strong point with the Generation X group, who have watched the baby boomers before them nutting in long hours at the office, oftin at the expense of family life and often, too, with the outcome of being made redundant or having their hard-won positions outsoureed.

Doug Spahn, principal of e-workforce, a Melbourne-based IT recruitment firm, says "these up-and-comers in their mid-20s to mid- 30s want more out of their worklife than did their predecessors". They want choice and they want work/life balance."

They are not reticent to ask for the desired conditions which, Spahn says, include a supportive workplace environment, good relationships with bosses and co-workers, flexible hours and profit sharing or performance-based incentives because, particularly in IT; "the good talent isn't scared to ask for what it wants".

In fact, so valuable is this "talent" that it has caused a polarity reversal in some job sectors. Employers are not thinking of how to get rid of dead wood but how they can retain their most valuable workers.

Spahn says of all the factors that make a workplace attractive to an employee, it is the tenor of the immediate relationship between a worker and his boss. "It is more important than salaries and benefits," he says.

Ideally, Spahn says, this relationship should be about genuine concern rather that about hierarchies and supervision. "We're moving from a parent-child model in the workplace to an adult-adult model," he says.

"Good relationships between managers and employees need to demonstrate a real care about a person's life. Great managers tend to walk around and talk to people on the coalface and great jobs allow people a degree of autonomy because people want to be in positions where they feel challenged - where they are allowed to stretch."

With a degree in psychology and a background that includes IT recruitment, Paul Barbaro is just about to be stretched by taking up an appointment as general manager of Jonathan Wren, a recruitment firm that specialises in the notoriously turbulent realm of finance employment.

Barbaro is another who believes that a workplace that "cares about its workers and not just about what they can do", a workplace that "allows its employees to take risks and chances, and to make mistakes", is a scenario with a potentially high retention rate of good staff.

"And if you've got that type of environment where innovation and responsibility are balanced, you generally have satisfied workers who believe they are making a valuable contribution."

Where you have over-zealous supervision or where workers aren't allowed to take ownership of their real achievements, "you have a serious problem of demotivation".

And when an employee senses such signs of negativity, they have one of two options: they can leave in the hope of securing a better position or; they can retreat into a comfort zone where they avoid notice and, invariably, can avoid making any real contribution to the company s progress.

According to motivational speaker Heidi Di Santo, if you are hiding in a comfort zone at work, you are probably "in a trap".

"A comfort zone is great if you are happy with your life," she says, "but a real trap if you are not happy because you are not motivated enough to focus on the future."

Thirty-year-old Di Santo, was evicted from her own comfort zone of a six-figure salary, a nice car and a big-city office when her high maintenance accounting career began to impact on her health.

She was forced to shake down to what was really important for her and, in the reshuffling of priorities.

"My health became the most important thing to me, so I started learning about getting myself healthy.

"I started studying nutrition at university, became a fitness consultant and, as I got fitter, I started to realise that U had to get the message out that work is important, but not if it costs you your health and your family relationships.

"Work screams the loudest because we get so many signals every day that we need money, but my aim as a motivational speaker is to get people to think about the big picture of family, health and then work. You've got to devote time and energy to to all three areas."

Di Santo says that her own motivation to change initially cost her financially but, after three years on the conference circuit, she is now almost level-pegging with her former income in her new incarnation as trainer, speaker and author and is a much happier person.

It's not about working harder or doing more, she says, "but about being more effective and better focused on the real priorities.

"So let's get our priorities straight."