April 28, 2017 at 09:13“Friday format”: Demotivation, or love [for work] cannot be bought for money
In our Friday format, we write in 1cloud about the work of programmers. For example, we talked about how corporations and start-ups are trying to attract high-class specialists and find out what salaries programmers in Silicon Valley and beyond can expect. But it turns out that a high salary, an interesting job and a variety of bonuses do not guarantee the loyalty of employees and can even demotivate them. / The Flickr / perzon seo / CC-BY clause
so it happened
, for example, in the Google division of development of unmanned vehicles. Since 2010, the company introduced incentive bonuses for employees who have worked in this area since its inception. In addition to high salaries and stakes in the company, they received large cash bonuses of several million dollars.
This led to the fact that leading employees received so much money that they stopped cherishing their work and started developing their own projects. For example, Chris Urmson, technical director of the self-driving car development project, in 2016, together with the former program manager Tesla Autopilot and Tesla Model X, founded their own startup Aurora.
And this is far from an isolated case. There are at least two more startups on the account of Waymo’s former employees (Google): hardware director Bryan Salesky started developing his own software for self-driving cars Argo AI, and another group of engineers founded the Otto unmanned truck project. In February of this year, it even became known that Google sued the new company for patent infringement and theft of trade secrets.
Of course, employees were not required to work for the corporation all their lives. But this case only confirms that large cash bonuses cannot be a long-term motivator for employees. The Institute of Management and Management in 2013 conducted a study that showed that $ 47.3 billion spent on paying cash bonuses in the UK did not increase the level of employee interest and motivation.
There are several explanations for this. If an employee receives bonuses often enough, then he begins to perceive them as part of his regular income. Therefore, when there is no payment for some reason, this will have a demotivating effect. This also leads to a situation where the prize is issuedall employees, excluding the contribution of each individual. You can avoid this if you think over the bonus payment system in advance, tie it to the achievement of certain goals - this will allow employees to better understand why they and their colleagues get paid.
There is another opinion, confirmed by the experiment on the influence of money on motivation, which was conducted back in 1971 by professor of psychology Edward Deci (Edward Deci). He suggested that students solve puzzles, while in the first group, students received $ 1 for each head, and in the second group puzzles were not paid.
The most interesting thing happened during the breaks, when the participants in the experiment could choose what to do: relax, read magazines or continue to solve puzzles. It is logical to assume that those who received the money continued to work in order to earn more. But in fact, everything happened quite the opposite - those people who did not receive money for participating in the experiment solved puzzles during the breaks.
Because of this “external” monetary reward, the participant lost their internal motivation - a feeling in which the reward is the activity itself. At the same time, in another experiment , the group in which positive feedback about work and verbal reinforcement was used as an external reward, the motivation was higher in comparison with the group that continued to work “for free”. This proves that the desire to work, interest and high performance are not always associated with money.
Intangible ways of motivating employees include, for example, programsrecognition of achievements. However, methods where colleagues themselves praise each other show greater effectiveness - verbal recognition of even small achievements has a serious effect on motivation.
This does not have to be done by people from one department or team, expanding the “geography” of such a program within the company leads to the fact that employees begin to better understand what their colleagues are doing and learn about their contribution to the success of the company. All this leads to an increase in team spirit, mutual assistance and reduces the number of absenteeism and lateness.
Another option is a little more tangible - reward with the help of certificates. The choice of certificates is desirable to personalize, that is, take into account the hobbies and desires of a particular employee. Then, in addition to the material component, such a reward can bring positive emotions and motivate.
However, even such a reward system is not as easy to build as it seems. In 2013, Ian Larkin of Harvard Business School conducted a study in which he studied the attendance bonus program introduced by the network laundry service. Employees who did not have absenteeism or delays for a month received a certificate for $ 75 at a local restaurant or store, and for six months of ideal attendance - another additional certificate for $ 100.
As a result, at the beginning of the program, employees preferred not to come to work at all, imitating poor health, if they realized that they were late. Managers hoped that during the program, people would develop the habit of arriving on time. But closer to the end of the nine-month company, if a delay still occurred and the employee was removed from the list of bonuses, the situation with delays worsened significantly. In addition, the appearance at the workplace on time was far from always associated with the amount of work performed.
In addition, there were dissatisfied with the new program. Those who always arrived on time before the introduction of the reward system or worked hard were very unhappy with the fact that less hardworking people who changed their behavior only after the start of the program received a reward. Their productivity fell by 6-8% percent. But in general, the productivity of the laundry fell by 1.4%, which cost the company $ 1,500 a month.
Demotivation, decrease in efficiency and interest may be associated not only with bonuses, bonuses and any types of rewards. Managers and managers have a great influence on the working atmosphere. Most often, employees are demotivated by unreasonable and too strict rules that are established in the company. We have already touched on the topic of domestic politics in this article . People do not like it when they try to control every step. This is confirmed even by our example about the control of lateness and attendance in the laundry room.
Lack of praise and feedback from superiors or equal treatment of all employees, regardless of their contribution to the common cause, negatively affects their attitude to work. In addition, much depends on the personality of the boss, who should not only be responsible, obligatory and do his job perfectly, but also be able to build human relations with employees. Attention and praise from the authorities will allow workers to avoid "burnout" and increase productivity.
PS What else are we writing on the 1cloud IaaS provider blog:
, for example, in the Google division of development of unmanned vehicles. Since 2010, the company introduced incentive bonuses for employees who have worked in this area since its inception. In addition to high salaries and stakes in the company, they received large cash bonuses of several million dollars.
This led to the fact that leading employees received so much money that they stopped cherishing their work and started developing their own projects. For example, Chris Urmson, technical director of the self-driving car development project, in 2016, together with the former program manager Tesla Autopilot and Tesla Model X, founded their own startup Aurora.
And this is far from an isolated case. There are at least two more startups on the account of Waymo’s former employees (Google): hardware director Bryan Salesky started developing his own software for self-driving cars Argo AI, and another group of engineers founded the Otto unmanned truck project. In February of this year, it even became known that Google sued the new company for patent infringement and theft of trade secrets.
Discord award
Of course, employees were not required to work for the corporation all their lives. But this case only confirms that large cash bonuses cannot be a long-term motivator for employees. The Institute of Management and Management in 2013 conducted a study that showed that $ 47.3 billion spent on paying cash bonuses in the UK did not increase the level of employee interest and motivation.
There are several explanations for this. If an employee receives bonuses often enough, then he begins to perceive them as part of his regular income. Therefore, when there is no payment for some reason, this will have a demotivating effect. This also leads to a situation where the prize is issuedall employees, excluding the contribution of each individual. You can avoid this if you think over the bonus payment system in advance, tie it to the achievement of certain goals - this will allow employees to better understand why they and their colleagues get paid.
Money can not buy happiness
There is another opinion, confirmed by the experiment on the influence of money on motivation, which was conducted back in 1971 by professor of psychology Edward Deci (Edward Deci). He suggested that students solve puzzles, while in the first group, students received $ 1 for each head, and in the second group puzzles were not paid.
The most interesting thing happened during the breaks, when the participants in the experiment could choose what to do: relax, read magazines or continue to solve puzzles. It is logical to assume that those who received the money continued to work in order to earn more. But in fact, everything happened quite the opposite - those people who did not receive money for participating in the experiment solved puzzles during the breaks.
Because of this “external” monetary reward, the participant lost their internal motivation - a feeling in which the reward is the activity itself. At the same time, in another experiment , the group in which positive feedback about work and verbal reinforcement was used as an external reward, the motivation was higher in comparison with the group that continued to work “for free”. This proves that the desire to work, interest and high performance are not always associated with money.
Intangible ways of motivating employees include, for example, programsrecognition of achievements. However, methods where colleagues themselves praise each other show greater effectiveness - verbal recognition of even small achievements has a serious effect on motivation.
This does not have to be done by people from one department or team, expanding the “geography” of such a program within the company leads to the fact that employees begin to better understand what their colleagues are doing and learn about their contribution to the success of the company. All this leads to an increase in team spirit, mutual assistance and reduces the number of absenteeism and lateness.
Another option is a little more tangible - reward with the help of certificates. The choice of certificates is desirable to personalize, that is, take into account the hobbies and desires of a particular employee. Then, in addition to the material component, such a reward can bring positive emotions and motivate.
However, even such a reward system is not as easy to build as it seems. In 2013, Ian Larkin of Harvard Business School conducted a study in which he studied the attendance bonus program introduced by the network laundry service. Employees who did not have absenteeism or delays for a month received a certificate for $ 75 at a local restaurant or store, and for six months of ideal attendance - another additional certificate for $ 100.
As a result, at the beginning of the program, employees preferred not to come to work at all, imitating poor health, if they realized that they were late. Managers hoped that during the program, people would develop the habit of arriving on time. But closer to the end of the nine-month company, if a delay still occurred and the employee was removed from the list of bonuses, the situation with delays worsened significantly. In addition, the appearance at the workplace on time was far from always associated with the amount of work performed.
In addition, there were dissatisfied with the new program. Those who always arrived on time before the introduction of the reward system or worked hard were very unhappy with the fact that less hardworking people who changed their behavior only after the start of the program received a reward. Their productivity fell by 6-8% percent. But in general, the productivity of the laundry fell by 1.4%, which cost the company $ 1,500 a month.
Human factor
Demotivation, decrease in efficiency and interest may be associated not only with bonuses, bonuses and any types of rewards. Managers and managers have a great influence on the working atmosphere. Most often, employees are demotivated by unreasonable and too strict rules that are established in the company. We have already touched on the topic of domestic politics in this article . People do not like it when they try to control every step. This is confirmed even by our example about the control of lateness and attendance in the laundry room.
Lack of praise and feedback from superiors or equal treatment of all employees, regardless of their contribution to the common cause, negatively affects their attitude to work. In addition, much depends on the personality of the boss, who should not only be responsible, obligatory and do his job perfectly, but also be able to build human relations with employees. Attention and praise from the authorities will allow workers to avoid "burnout" and increase productivity.
PS What else are we writing on the 1cloud IaaS provider blog: