Employee Morale

Personnel Management can be tricky. It may seem weird but an effective manager will pay attention to psychology and corporate research.

Basically, I had several scenarios and I wanted to discuss them.

1. If your company does a very large, annual company picnic, would you rather have that money spent as a bonus or do you like that money?

2. Pretend you work on a 5 man team and one of your colleagues just quit or got promoted. If given the option, would you prefer to take on more work and your former coworker's pay (if you were all paid roughly the same, it would be like a 25% pay raise) or would you prefer they backfill the position? (Pretend the workload is doable without forcing you to have to work overtime but you would obviously be working more throughout the day: 5% more, to be exact). If the additional work is not worth it, explain (and use job examples). Do you think the additional pay would offset the morale dampening effect of more work?

3. Would you rather get a compliment from your boss, every now and again, or would you rather nothing ever be said (except during annual reviews) and get a fat raise? On this one, the research says the former is preferred by most people. I strongly disagree but maybe I'm just a greedy bassturd.

Originally posted by dadudemon
It may seem weird but an effective manager will pay attention to psychology and corporate research.

Originally posted by dadudemon
1. If your company does a very large, annual company picnic, would you rather have that money spent as a bonus or do you like that money?

Originally posted by dadudemon
2. Pretend you work on a 5 man team and one of your colleagues just quit or got promoted. If given the option, would you prefer to take on more work and your former coworker's pay (if you were all paid roughly the same, it would be like a 25% pay raise) or would you prefer they backfill the position? (Pretend the workload is doable without forcing you to have to work overtime but you would obviously be working more throughout the day: 5% more, to be exact). If the additional work is not worth it, explain (and use job examples). Do you think the additional pay would offset the morale dampening effect of more work?

For myself, it wasn't a bad deal at first. My day was busier, it went faster, I felt more on top of things...and I also did not bust my butt trying to complete twice as much work in the same amount of hours. I simply made it clear to my superiors (with numbers) that my job was becoming untenable. Fortunately, my supervisors were quite understanding, and given that the whole system was falling apart under Bloomberg, no one stood out. The comparison I used to make was, the school system is the Titanic, and the personnel are the band members still playing while the ship sinks.

Originally posted by dadudemon
3. Would you rather get a compliment from your boss, every now and again, or would you rather nothing ever be said (except during annual reviews) and get a fat raise? On this one, the research says the former is preferred by most people. I strongly disagree but maybe I'm just a greedy bassturd.

Originally posted by Mindship
Not weird at all: that's why they're effective. It's the managers who still harbor a 1950s, whip-'em-til-they-drop / people-are-like-machines mentality that's medieval, if not outright barbaric **coughbloombergcough**

Some hold (from my experience) that a "boss" has no business conducting or researching the relevant psychology, while on the job or for the job. They hold that that is up to the business unit, HR, and part of the Strategic Direction. The boss should execute those directives and nothing else. If they wish to proceed a different way, they submit their suggestion up the proper channels. If rejected, suck it. If accepted, bam, change in the way you want.

Most organizations are happy that their managers are interested in being as effective as possible. Some are not. Some want you to stick to the roles and responsibilities assigned to the position and deviation is not an option: including researching and implementing more effective ways of personnel management.

I fall somewhere in between. You should definitely focus on your job roles and responsibilities and limit your extracurricular job-related research. However, strictly sticking with you assigned duties and processes for those duties is not conducive to continual improvement.

At one point, at a previous job, I suggested a massive number of ways to improve morale and go about personnel management. I got the, "who the hell do you think you are?" talk from my boss' boss. I was told to shutup and color, basically.

Originally posted by Mindship
Depends. Company festivities are important because you get to socially bond with your coworkers, who very often on the job can be more valuable than a few extra $$$. Of course, it also depends on your own financial situation. I ain't hurtin', so I'd prefer the picnic / holiday party / etc.

I think the employees should get a say and go with what the majority wants to do. If they want an annual picnic, give it to them. If they want a $50-$100 bonus instead of a picnic, give it to them.

Originally posted by Mindship
This is what happened to NYC school psychologists in 2003, once Mayor Doomsberg took control of the school system. Psychologists used to work with an "Educational Evaluator" til Bloomberg decided the Psychologist should do everything (it's gotten worse since; Psychs have been loaded up with all sorts of non-psych duties). This effectively doubled the workload cuz now I was doing psych And ed testing. Did we get paid more? Hell no. When we complained about the extra work, the Powers That Be responded that we should consider ourselves lucky we still had jobs.

For myself, it wasn't a bad deal at first. My day was busier, it went faster, I felt more on top of things...and I also did not bust my butt trying to complete twice as much work in the same amount of hours. I simply made it clear to my superiors (with numbers) that my job was becoming untenable. Fortunately, my supervisors were quite understanding, and given that the whole system was falling apart under Bloomberg, no one stood out. The comparison I used to make was, the school system is the Titanic, and the personnel are the band members still playing while the ship sinks.

Very interesting. Your situation is not like the question, though. If they gave you a 25% pay increase for taking on more work, would your opinion of the situation change?

Originally posted by Mindship
Compliments now and then are nice, but if I was hurting financially, I'd want the extra $$$. Compliments can also be manipulative so a boss can get away with not paying more (or so s/he thinks). Extra $$$ is unambiguous.

I saw that: the compliment and employee recognition stuff rather than giving your people raises.

At an old job, instead of giving people raises, they had an employee recognition program where they got a worthless piece of paper and a pizza-party for their team.

Great: you spent a massive $50 on pizza and $.0001 on a piece of paper and ink.

I thought it was very lame and cheap. They should have just given a 2% raise in addition to the annual raise (and they didn't give out annual raises, either).

But, some say that compliments are what they live for as long as their pay can pay the bills. I just don't see that. Money speaks more than words.

If you think I'm a great employee, prove it with a paycheck.

I love the people I work with but, man, if the department suddenly came up with enough money to hold an annual picnic I know we'd all want to make a little more money.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I love the people I work with but, man, if the department suddenly came up with enough money to hold an annual picnic I know we'd all want to make a little more money.

That question is really easy to answer for very large teams: hell no.

But for teams smaller than 20, that's a significant pay raise. For teams smaller than 3, that's a ton of more work and a massive pay raise.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Very interesting. Your situation is not like the question, though. If they gave you a 25% pay increase for taking on more work, would your opinion of the situation change?

Yes: a 25% increase in pay definitely would have soothed a lot of bad feelings in my situation, at least in the beginning.

Originally posted by dadudemon
What about the other stuff. Would you be willing to take on more work if one of your coworkers left your team...if and only if you got that former coworker's pay evenly distributed across the team?

If someone else working the phone left and I had to take on all of their work I wouldn't do it without a crazy pay raise. Even with two or three people the downtime between calls isn't always as long as it takes to complete an issue. Working with people on the phone is ridiculously stressful. I'd work hardware, though, (or take more walk-ins but I already get all of them).

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I'd work hardware, though, (or take more walk-ins but I already get all of them).

That's usually the most comfortable route because you don't have to work with people very much. As long as you aren't given a crap ton of projects with unreasable deadlines, it can be quite satisfying.

Originally posted by dadudemon
That's usually the most comfortable route because you don't have to work with people very much. As long as you aren't given a crap ton of projects with unreasable deadlines, it can be quite satisfying.

It's not a matter of working with people, it's a matter of working with people on the phone as they try to describe problems they barely understand within the limited time available.

[list=1][*]It depends. If I like some of the workers and would like to know the rest, then sure. If not, I'd take the bonus.
[*]Yes. As long as I don't have to work more days or hours.
[*]The four to five months I've worked I've gotten more false complements than I can count from my supervisors. The raise actually means something, and less hours that would be awesome.[/list=1]

Why can't your boss compliment you while also giving a fat raise?

Originally posted by dadudemon
Personnel Management can be tricky. It may seem weird but an effective manager will pay attention to psychology and corporate research.

Basically, I had several scenarios and I wanted to discuss them.

1. If your company does a very large, annual company picnic, would you rather have that money spent as a bonus or do you like that money?

2. Pretend you work on a 5 man team and one of your colleagues just quit or got promoted. If given the option, would you prefer to take on more work and your former coworker's pay (if you were all paid roughly the same, it would be like a 25% pay raise) or would you prefer they backfill the position? (Pretend the workload is doable without forcing you to have to work overtime but you would obviously be working more throughout the day: 5% more, to be exact). If the additional work is not worth it, explain (and use job examples). Do you think the additional pay would offset the morale dampening effect of more work?

3. Would you rather get a compliment from your boss, every now and again, or would you rather nothing ever be said (except during annual reviews) and get a fat raise? On this one, the research says the former is preferred by most people. I strongly disagree but maybe I'm just a greedy bassturd.

Corporate............... Whore!

are you asking about the psychology behind what would actually make people enjoy their job, or about what people would tell you would make them enjoy their job?

Like many things in psychology, I can imagine these things being incredibly different.

Originally posted by Astner
The four to five months I've worked I've gotten more false complements than I can count from my supervisors.

man, all the nice advisors are in physics eh?

unless "I can see your potential but..." counts as a compliment

Originally posted by NemeBro
Why can't your boss compliment you while also giving a fat raise?

That's ideal but that's not how it is "spun" in the real world. A lot of times, they (management) will give empty compliments in lieu of a decent raise because they just cannot fecking afford to give you a decent raise.

Originally posted by Oliver North
are you asking about the psychology behind what would actually make people enjoy their job, or about what people would tell you would make them enjoy their job?

Mos def the former...however, I have to settle on the latter since this is a forum.

Originally posted by Oliver North
Like many things in psychology, I can imagine these things being incredibly different.

Indeed. I'm decently familiar with the research as I've spent the last 2 ****ing years studying it (it is dry...very very dry...and feels like a subjective pile of shit, half of the time). What research shows and what happens in the real world are two-different things, at times. They do not necessarily have to be and I sometimes want to refute what research shows (such as receiving words of affirmation for the work you do vs. a fat raise).

Originally posted by NemeBro
Why can't your boss compliment you while also giving a fat raise?

I think you're looking for a job with the Mob. Just remember that when you mess up, the consequences will be equal and opposite to your "promotion."

Either this, or you're in the 60's and completely non-expendable. Methinks a situation like Mad Men and Don Draper.

My dad is a manager at Dell, he's a good guy, very understanding and he always listens to his colleagues and is sympathetic to their needs. He gets frustrated a lot, he doesn't particularly like his job [he'd rather be doing something that is about promoting voting, finding ground between the two parties, etc.] Somehow, he doesn't bring Other People's Problems home with him. I think that people working under him may be somewhat happier... although I'm not exactly impartial.

Originally posted by siriuswriter
My dad is a manager at Dell, he's a good guy, very understanding and he always listens to his colleagues and is sympathetic to their needs. He gets frustrated a lot, he doesn't particularly like his job [he'd rather be doing something that is about promoting voting, finding ground between the two parties, etc.] Somehow, he doesn't bring Other People's Problems home with him. I think that people working under him may be somewhat happier... although I'm not exactly impartial.

That's cool.

Why would you hire anyone that does not manage themselves well?

You can only manage expectations and give those the tools and know how and to work on quality up front, as far as conformance to requirements. Read the One Minute Manager. Then work on the speed of getting things done faster. Micro managing is B.S. and very counter productive. Seen in many places and it's complete B.S. power trip is all it is.

Originally posted by Sheldon
Why would you hire anyone that does not manage themselves well?

And how do you determine that from a resume, 2-3 references the candidate provides, and an interview or two?

Hint: after interviewing 1000+ people, I can tell you it is nearly impossible to truly determine if a person will be a great employee. It is a damn game played between candidates and discerning perspective employers.

Originally posted by Sheldon
You can only manage expectations and give those the tools and know how and to work on quality up front, as far as conformance to requirements.

If that's all you're doing, you're a very shitty manager.

Originally posted by Sheldon
Read the One Minute Manager.

Based on your advice, I will not waste my time on that.

Originally posted by Sheldon
Then work on the speed of getting things done faster.

Because faster is always better, right? RIIGHT?

Originally posted by Sheldon
Micro managing is B.S. and very counter productive.

What's really B.S. is making blanket statements about all possible management practices regarding all employment situations. In some management positions, a manager's function is explicitly to micromanage: for example, call centers.

Originally posted by Sheldon
Seen in many places and it's complete B.S. power trip is all it is.

Disgruntled? 😄

Originally posted by dadudemon
1. If your company does a very large, annual company picnic, would you rather have that money spent as a bonus or do you like that money?

I don't quite understand the question. Will you rephrase, please?

Originally posted by dadudemon
2. Pretend you work on a 5 man team and one of your colleagues just quit or got promoted. If given the option, would you prefer to take on more work and your former coworker's pay (if you were all paid roughly the same, it would be like a 25% pay raise) or would you prefer they backfill the position? (Pretend the workload is doable without forcing you to have to work overtime but you would obviously be working more throughout the day: 5% more, to be exact). If the additional work is not worth it, explain (and use job examples). Do you think the additional pay would offset the morale dampening effect of more work?

Personally, if it means a pay raise for me, then I would absolutely do extra work for more money. The meat of my pay check is made form overtime and per diem, not to mention that my work isn't TOO strenuous to tackle extra. I'd gladly x-ray more welds and do other NDT for a 25% raise!

Originally posted by dadudemon
3. Would you rather get a compliment from your boss, every now and again, or would you rather nothing ever be said (except during annual reviews) and get a fat raise? On this one, the research says the former is preferred by most people. I strongly disagree but maybe I'm just a greedy bassturd.

We have safety meeting roughly every 60 days and I have an excellent relationship with my three bosses (branch manager, radiation safety officer, and dispatch manager) all of whom I get along with splendidly.

However, since I'm a whore and want money, I would rather them ignore me and just give me an annual raise every year.

I'm not so shallow and needy that I need a compliment from my managers to boost my morale; I know what the f*ck I'm capable of.