When my company switched to a different editing program last year, there was a severe dip in production. This was due to the time lost to training and the learning curve. To counteract this, management had two 3-4 week long production pushes. We were asked to come in early and stay late.
The problem was that nothing like this had occurred within the department before. People were reluctant to work the overtime. Management's solution was to bribe us with crummy pizza and frozen bagels. This offended me, and my coworkers. Because emails associated the extra time working with food as the compensation, it implied that our time was only worth the cheap food they occasionally provided. In the end, it didn't work, and we made little progress in reducing our work load.
This year, we are again in production time crunch. Management learned its lesson. This time, they were not going to bribe us with free food. Instead, we were given heartfelt thanks and appreciation for pulling together and working to maintain our customer's high expectations for publication times. This has already been proven to work - after 2 weeks, we have edited record numbers of articles.
In the absence of paying us additional money, this was the company's best bet. It encouraged us to take pride in our work and the company's reputation, and helped morale by treating us as a team working toward a goal. Although this was what was intended before, the context and tone of the communication and the motivation used this time were more effective.
Shah, K. & Shah, P. (n.d.) Motivation. Retrieved July 10, 2007, from http://www.laynetworks.com/Motivation.html.
a little humor on how NOT to motivate your employees:
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3 comments:
Hey now.... food is a big incentive for me. When I go to boring meetings, I'm crabby if they don't give me a snack. I think "how rude, I would give you a snack if I invited y'all to a boring meeting."
But if I had to work overtime, I would be hot to trot if I wasn't getting paid. A bagel wouldn't do the trick.
Yet, if I liked my work (a lot) I would be happy to contribute extra hours without pay.
We work about 15 hours of overtime each week (performing arts company) and don't bill the clients. We do it because we know that the client appreciates our work. If they didn't shower us with compliments, then the client would be billed! Hey now, it's one or the other bucko...spoil me with words or pay up.
Glad your bosses found a way to motivate you - a simple "thank you" goes a long way.
Charise,
It is amazing how effective true appreciation can be. I worked for a large ad agency for many years. I would work many weekends while my boss would be on his boat on Lake Erie. He would come in on Monday tanned and rested... I would usually be exhausted. When there is shared sacrifice and everyone is working toward the same goal, it seems more fair. Although he was very grateful, I would have traded all those bonuses to be with my wife and sons.
Jim
While snacks are great, I'm glad for your and your co-workers sake management was able to recognize that the bagels were not as motivating as anticipated.
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