Care about your employees and they will be productive
An interesting workplace experiment took place in New Zealand this past spring. It was straightforward enough in concept: Employees would work four days a week, but their current pay levels would not change. They would work four days but be paid for five — a full week.
As so often happens when human beings are involved, the experiment was simple but the results are not. In fact, the experiment’s results are raising questions about workplace management practices that have become established dogma.
The results from the Perpetual Guardian firm in New Zealand, where the experiment in work hours originated, indicated that there was no decrease in the amount of work accomplished each week. As there had been a 20 percent reduction in work hours, that meant that productivity had gone up.
Anecdotally, it appears that the experiment boosted morale, which possibly can be causally linked to the productivity increase. Analysts from two New Zealand universities are poring over the data and worker interviews to sort out the results and see what conclusions can be drawn.
The results from New Zealand resemble the outcome of a similar experiment in Sweden. In France, however, a nationwide mandate shortening the work week produced an outpouring of complaints from business owners and little else.
As analysts sift through data, we should bear in mind the “Hawthorne Effect.” Named for the Hawthorne Works Western Electric manufacturing plant where the experiments took place, a team of industrial analysts headed up by Harvard Business School Professor Elton Mayo first changed the lighting in the workplace. Productivity went up, and the analysts figured that the lighting change was the cause.
Later, the team then changed the color of the workplace walls, and productivity went up again. Hmmm. They then began to change other things like lunch break times and workspace cleaning and, sure enough, productivity went up each time they changed something … and declined after the experiment was over.
Elton Mayo eventually figured out what was happening and revealed the real source of the productivity increases: the attention being paid to the workers.
https://www.heraldnet.com/business/care-about-your-employees-and-they-will-be-productive/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=dc695742e8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-dc695742e8-228635337
