I recently met a company Director at a network event. He was ruminating about an employee who he was worried about. He had invited her along on that evening, keen to get her talking about the great work she was doing and meeting friends and colleagues and generally extend her networks. She refused, saying that she was only willing to do so if he would pay her “time and a half” to go.

This successful entreprenuer was a little downcast at this. He clearly valued this employee and spoke about her valuable work, cheerful manner, dedication and general willingness to work hard – between opening hours only…

I fell into my own trap here. In his agreement with her at the start of her employment there was an expectation of the occasional out of hours work. We begin to talk about the nature of “the deal” between employer and employee, expectations, rewards etc. It was only on the way home that I realised that I was wrong.

Four of the basic principles which underpin my work are (a) people are always doing their best with the resources available to them (b) our work is extremely important to us, this has sometimes been forgotten and there may be a feature of this culture that dictates that it’s not cool to like work (c) you can make people do what you want them to do but risk losing their goodwill and (d) people are more motivated by their imagination (what may happen) than their will (what they can make happen).

You can imagine a conversation between this man and his valued employee. “You give me this” and “I’ll give you that”, “I want to give you less”, “you want more” etc etc. This is way negotiations go generally and most instances it works well.

Our friend wants more than somebody to go to the network event with him – he wants a motivated, excited, interested employee who has a vision for the company and her role within it. He wants her contribution to the future success of the firm, exciting work, challenging contracts, a vibrant office culture. I didn’t meet her but would guess that she wants to grow, have fun, be well rewarded, develop sellable skills, achieve fulfillment at work (what we all want really). This surely is more valuable than time and a half her normal hourly rate.

What to do then? Well if I meet him again and if he was interested to hear my thoughts – I’d encourage a broad dialogue, over a number of sessions in which he models a vision for the company – talks about the future in positive terms, describes how specifically he values her work and how she can be a part of the future. He would ask her her thoughts, enjoying the new world constructing between them. Her contribution can emerge, her role in talking about the company becomes clear, if she is as talented and committed as he says (I don’t doubt it) he won’t have to force it. The couple of hours spent talking to other business people over a glass a wine becomes more than just extra work, it becomes a place where she can part of the future he has described.

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