Do you think money makes the world of work go round?

Well, with the festive season and its demands on your wallet coming up, one would say yes, of course, money is number one. But according to an American study conducted in 2014, the majority of the participating 200 000 employees from more than 500 organisations worldwide, disagree.

One of the findings of the study, The 7 Key Trends Impacting Today’s Workplace, was that  peers—not money—are the number one influence on their colleagues, and the source of 20% of all employees going the extra mile.

These employees viewed compensation as merely the baseline reason for taking a job. They say camaraderie plays the true motivating role in encouraging them to outperform expectations. In second place is the intrinsic desire to do a good job (17%), followed by feeling encouraged and recognised (13%), having a real impact (10%), growing professionally (8%) and meeting client needs (8%). Only then do you hear the clinking of coins – money and benefits (7%) takes seventh place as motivating factor to excel and go the extra mile.

Whatever their motivation, our NWU staff members did it again – they excelled in 2016, despite challenges such as student unrest, closed campuses and restructuring of the NWU.

In this edition of Eish! you can read about our top researchers and innovators (“Tourism and Theology reign supreme at research awards” and “Young researcher in good company at Women in Science awards”), our distinguished teaching-learning experts (“For they are jolly good (TAU) fellows”) and of course those who often go the extra mile behind the scenes, motivating their peers to do the same (“They go the extra mile”).

However, during the summer holiday, you are expected to excel at doing as little as possible. If you feel driven to excel, be an excellent reader, sleeper, swimmer, talker and walker.  Enjoy the sunshine (remember sun screen!), charge your batteries and come back to tackle 2017 with the same motivation that made you shine during 2016.

Happy reading.