B Student Grade: B Laura Raffaelli

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Student Grade: B
Laura Raffaelli-Mcleish
Ewrt 2
23 March 2011
Work Environment
Work performance is very important; to an extent that it often forces employers to
cross the lines of morality to motivate their employees. In Bright-Sided: How the Relentless
Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America, Barbara Ehrenreich writes, “Not all
the motivational methods applied to salespeople feature rewards and incentives” (103).
According to Ehrenreich, many companies did not always treat their employees with such
respect to get them motivated. Instead of encouraging workers to do better with positive
speeches or gifts, employers turned to punishment instead. Such methods were not only
ineffective, but also immoral, and often illegal. Instead of resorting to negative methods,
companies are better served using a happy work environment and positive thinking as tools for
motivating their employees.
Many companies encourage their employees to think positively when it comes to building
a good environment. Positive thinking is always necessary, especially when it comes to selling or
trying to provide service for others. Some common ways that companies would motivate their
employees to do better would be when they offer their employees recognition for their
outstanding performances, applaud the employee, make up fun days such as “dress to impress”,
giving the employee more leadership roles, and just awarding them time off from work. Treating
your employees with respect will create a more positive environment. This is the correct way of
positive thinking and motivation to treat your employees.
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People find comfort in thinking positive because it helps them relax and ease their fears.
You don’t need to be a good salesman to work as a salesman. With that said, not all salesmen are
good at selling; they take the job to earn money. According to the-benefits-of-positivethinking.com, “Motivation and positive thinking make a difference on facing fears, on keeping
on doing what you are busy with, and on taking up new challenges.” It is important to make
employees feel comfortable in their work environment so that they can concentrate on their work
without distraction or fear. A friendly atmosphere is a much better working condition than a
tense or high-pressure environment. While making employees feel at ease, employers must also
motivate them concurrently. This may be as simple as changing a sales quota to a sales goal, and
also replacing disciplinary actions for not meeting the quota with incentives for meeting the goal.
In essence, the concept is the same. However, the employee will feel much more at ease with a
sales goal which grants incentives than with a sales quota which enforces disciplinary action.
Positive motivation and a friendly work environment will help employees improve performance.
While positive motivation is more effective, many companies treat their employees with
a negative approach. Many approach their employees by bribing them with money, and even
spanking them and embarrassing them in front of the whole staff, depending on how poorly they
perform. Hurting employees is never a good approach to motivate them to do better.
In Bright- Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America, Barbara
Ehrenreich mentions some ill-efforts by companies to improve employee performance. She
writes about an incidence from Prosper Inc. in Prove, Utah, “a supervisor subjected an employee
to water boarding as part of a ‘motivational exercise.’ The employee, who had volunteered for
the experience without knowing what was involved, was taken outside, told to lie down with his
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head pointed downhill, and held in place by fellow employees while the supervisor poured water
into his nose and mouth. ‘You saw how hard Chad fought for air right there,’ the supervisor
reportedly told the sales team. ‘I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales,’
while insisting that the company does not condone torture” (103-104). Torturing an employee to
motivate or prove a point is not the way to go. That “experiment” must have been a terrifying
experience, not just for Chad, but for all employees that had to witness the event. Such methods
are not only immoral, but surely illegal. Along with being embarrassed, Chad was unnecessarily
put in great dangerous. Ehrenreich also mentions another incidence, in which a salesman
testified, “Basically, you’d get up in front of the room, put your hands on the wall, bend over,
and get hit with the sign” (103). That was an example of what one company did to get their
employees to work harder. Getting spanked for poor performance at work was what the
California-based home-security company did to motivate their employees. Ehrenreich also
writes, “Other punishments for underperforming salespersons included having eggs broken on
their heads or whipped cream sprayed on their faces and being forced to wear diapers” (103).
The company used the method of embarrassing their employees in front of the whole staff to get
them to feel motivated to do better. The company knew that by embarrassing their employees,
they would feel the need to do better so that they would not have to deal with the
embarrassments again. However, nothing positive can result from humiliating an employee or
exposing/exploiting an employee’s fear/weakness. Instead, it would lower their self-esteem, and
may even put the company at risk for a lawsuit, as was the case with the spanking. According to
Ehrenreich, “Since both men and women were subjected to them, the spankings did not qualify
as sexual harassment, and the women lost her suit” (103). It is sad to know that the employee lost
the suit, but the fact that she filed one proves her dismay and the gravity of the incident. Rather
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than putting an employee down with negativity, the company should change their approach to be
more positive about situations. Companies cannot expect their employees to have respect for
them if they do not have any for their workers.
Before reading the incidences that Ehrenreich wrote about, I had never heard of a
company that treated their employees with such recklessness or immorality. Even had I heard
about such stories, I would have dismissed them as a fabrication or assumed that they were salted
with a heavy dose of exaggeration. If not for being in a published book, those incidences would
seem laughable because of their extremity. That they are real-life incidences sicken me, because
it is highly immoral, not to mention illegal, to be hurting your employees physically, and scarring
them mentally and emotionally. No one should ever be treated as bad as those employees were. I
strongly agree with Ehrenreich about how those measures should not be taken to motivate your
employees. What they did was very wrong; physically and mentally injuring your employees is
always negative. Their methods are polar opposites of positive thinking. It might be positive
thinking if you were evil, but it is very immoral to be embarrassing your employees with such
experiences that they would be scarred for life. What happened to them is something they would
not forget because they were traumatized; no one wants to get egged in the face or spanked like a
child, especially in front of a whole crowd. Such work conditions will utterly fail to motivate
employees, force them to quit, and sometimes seek legal retribution against the company.
Perhaps companies turn to negative methods to push employees because creating a
positive work environment requires more effort and time. For some employers, finding time to
converse with their employees is hard when you have many other responsibilities. However, that
does not excuse you from being polite with your employees when you bump into them around
the work environment. Ed Sykes, a professional speaker, says, “Doing the little things well will
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show that you respect your employees. Making sure you are on time for meetings, saying ‘good
morning’ and ‘thank-you,’ and returning phone calls and e-mails in a timely manner goes a long
way to showing your employees that you care during chaotic times.” It is encouraging when you
are noticed by the boss, even with just a wave or a “hi” when you pass each other in the office. It
shows respect towards one another, even if the boss of the company does not know your name.
The more employers can dedicate time to get to know their employees, especially on a personal
level, the more positive thinking will result. By building relationships with employees,
employers can help them feel more at ease. For instance, if they are called into the office, they
can look forward to a nice chat, instead of fearing that they had done something wrong and
fearing reprimand. Along with feeling more at ease, employees will also feel appreciated, which
would motivate them to work harder and care more about that company.
Positive thinking and a comfortable work environment are great motivators for
employees. Though it may take a little more effort for companies to provide such positive
motivation, it is a much better approach than using punishment, humiliation, and embarrassment
to push employees. Sometimes, employers forget that their employees are people too, and not
just tools to make them richer. As such, it is important for companies to treat their employees
with ethics and morality. If poor performance persists despite the employer using the positive
approach, the employer can choose to speak to the employee behind closed doors, and give them
a warning or fire them. Never should a company take extreme measures as those mentioned by
Ehrenreich to discipline its workers. Publicly embarrassing someone will not motivate them in a
positive way, but have them think poorly of themselves. Instead of mistreating someone to
motivate them, why not give him or her good, reasonable, positive advice to help them perform
better? After all, a happy employee will perform better than a disgruntled or terrified one.
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Word Count: 1619
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Bibliography
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
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
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
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<http://www.thesykesgrp.com/MotivateOthersChaos01.htm>.

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Bright- Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America.
New York: Picador, 2010. Print.

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