Responsible for your own motivation, reward, training, performance…?

We saw an advert the other day for a Head of Reward and Performance Management and part of the role is to “motivate your team of Reward specialists” which we think is really interesting and sparks a lot of questions for us.

We don’t understand why the Reward specialists need motivating by the Head of? We would presume that when they applied for or accepted their jobs they were motivated, and if they lack motivation now, are curious about why that might be. Who motivates the Head of and who motivates them? Where does it stop?

And whose responsibility is motivation anyway? In a great team and organisation isn’t everyone responsible for their own motivation and mutually accountable for doing what they can to help others stay motivated? We know that great ways to do this are to get confident about doing your role and helping others to feel confident about theirs. Also to connect with others, make it easy for them to connect with you and encourage them to make other connections. And finally to look for areas where you can exercise choice and grow your sense of control over what you do and to help others grow that feeling in themselves. So perhaps the first job of the new Head of Reward and Performance Management is to sack themself and remind everyone that they are responsible for their own rewards, performance and motivation?