JARSS Assessment

What are the factors that build or diminish your motivation and resilience at work? Drawing on over 40 years of research, JARSS has identified the 5 key workplace factors that can be interpreted as a threat or as reward.

Use JARSS to more deeply understand how you and your colleagues are likely to react to change.

5 key factors for resilience & motivation

JARSS identifies which of the 5 key factors will build or diminish your resilience and motivation at work. The influence of each factor varies for each individual.

Justice

Employee perceptions of justice are linked to commitment, performance, job satisfaction and burnout.

There are 2 types:

procedural: is the process fair?
distributive: is the decision fair?

Autonomy

A lack of autonomy is a key predictor of burnout. It includes:

having a sense of control over your work and your day
freedom to decide how you achieve the goals set for your role

Recognition

Recognition helps to reduce job stress by lowering emotional exhaustion. Effective recognition also improves job performance and increases intention to stay.

Social support

A lack of social support is a significant predictor of burnout, as well as reducing the likelihood of positive organisational citizenship behaviours, such as altruism, courtesy, and conscientiousness.

Stability & structure

Clear expectations, consistent policies and a sense of predictability can be key factors to support engagement for some employees.

What happens when cortisol spikes?

Cortisol, the amygdala & the threat response

Certain factors are more likely to trigger your “threat response”, when your amygdala is activated and cortisol spikes. The amygdala plays a key role in how we assess and respond to environmental threats and challenges. The amygdala causes the adrenal glands to release the hormones adrenaline and cortisol* into the blood, as part of a fight-or-flight reaction. This can make it harder to make rational decisions. In addition, while cortisol is important for several bodily processes, it is not helpful while you are sedentary, for example in a “desk job”. If chronic stress means that cortisol is regularly produced and not processed by the body, for example through exercise or other physical exertion, it can contribute to burnout*. *Cortisol: https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/fight-or-flight-syndrome *Burnout: https://www.pardigm.com/articles/cortisol-and-burnout

Dopamine and motivation

Motivation is highly correlated to dopamine release, which is released both in pursuit of a goal or reward and when you reach that goal. Depending on the individual and the situation, dopamine may be released in response to several factors, including Recognition and Social Support. Understanding which factors are more influential for you and your team helps to understand likely responses to change.

Which factors can trigger dopamine, supporting motivation?

Coaching clients, people leaders and HR executives use JARSS to spark better conversations and more conscious responses.

HR Executive

"A really practical session and framework that our leaders started using straight away."

Leadership Development Partner

"Really enjoyed the discussion and learning new strategies. Now to put it into action!"

Technical Lead

"Very insightful. The team loved it and we refer to it regularly."

Individual or team assessment?

Individuals use the assessment report and recommendations to proactively plan their responses to upcoming events and challenges.

Teams share and discuss their individual results to better understand the different factors that impact each other.

Take the next step

Uncover your factors today

Each individual assessment is $250, inc. GST and includes:

Detailed report
50 minute debriefing session
Customised action plan

Team assessments and debriefs are available.

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The background of JARSS

1999: '6 Areas of Worklife'

Maslach & Leiter identified the 6 primary themes of burnout research.

Reward
Control
Community
Fairness
Values
Workload

2008: SCARF

Dr. David Rock developed the SCARF framework to highlight factors that impact our motivation.

Status (instead of Reward)
Certainty (instead of Control)
Autonomy
Relatedness (instead of Community)
Fairness

2023: JARSS

We built on these 2 frameworks with contemporary neuroscience research.

Justice (more nuanced than Fairness)
Autonomy
Recognition (broader than Status or Reward)
Social Support
Stability & Structure