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The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

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Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#61

Post by radcon »

lostphilosopher wrote: post #42

Not a counter point to this article, but a counter point to the efficacy of monetary rewards. > "Study showed that monetary incentives are great for routine, mechanical work. But how does it play when talking about cognitive, advanced tasks? Not well at all." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgKKPQiRRag Counter-counter point: If anyone ever points you to this for evidence _you_ shouldn't get a bonus/monetary reward sy…

I don't think one reward method is objectively better than any other because individuals are all motivated by different things.

Some people want to feel appreciated, some want to feel like their work makes a difference in the world, and some really are motivated by huge wads of cash.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#62

Post by KSS42 »

billfruit wrote: post #13
Areading314 wrote: post #3

On a team with many colleagues from India, was repeatedly promised steak dinners if we were able to meet deadlines.

There are plenty of Indians fine with steak dinners. India is a pretty diverse country.

Some get around this by ordering bison - totally different species ...

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#63

Post by Nelson69 »

futureastronaut wrote: post #38
maxxxxx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or when a team works 6 weekends in a row, give them 3 days extra off and make it sound generous.

I worked in a startup eng. org that worked everybody to the bone for several months with a dubious SOA overhaul. The prize was a cheap open bar. At least it looked like an open bar, privately reserved and such. We each got two raffle-style tickets to exchange for drinks, lest us peons get carried away. Three days off? That would've been amazing.

hahaha. "drink tickets" I don't honestly know if it's a cost thing so much as some trick HR has convinced people will limit their liability if something bad were to happen. Every time I see that done, it seems like there is a little black market for them the develops, some folks don't drink or leave the party early and people tend to accumulate more than their 2 or 3 tickets.

This company no longer exists but they routinely demanded 6 days a week effort as a matter of principle (if you put the hard work in up front, it pays dividends as the project goes on... and then they just add stuff near the end of the project) Some people left, morale was terrible, what did they do? The C-level staff that a) had limited culinary ability, and b) nobody really wanted to spend time with made a special dinner for everybody, it was quasi mandatory on a Friday night. The CEO even gave a speech about how they could have just taken us to a nice restaurant but it felt more personal and special for them to make and serve us dinner.

To make it even better, there were some vegans in the mix and they didn't have anything that they could eat.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#64

Post by mevile »

Someone1234 wrote: post #47

Considering how expensive staff are, I've never understood the culture surrounding penny pinching the stuff that would keep them happy/improve moral/improve retention. Forget the moral arguments for a second, even in purely financial terms it would likely pay for itself in recruitment savings alone, let alone brain drain/efficiency, training costs, and so on. Even a "cheap" employee in a white collar job, is likely c…

It must be hard to quantify the benefits of preventive measures to reduce employee turnover.

It would probably take a company that had all of its shit in order to have a nice report about how HR initiatives over some amount of years was directly correlated to lower employee turnover. If you can't put it in a report to accurately understand the impact of the expenditure it probably becomes hard to justify. I think this must explain all the ineffective half measures and low budgets.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#65

Post by eli »

protomyth wrote: post #55
1121redblackgo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I really stretched my imagination, maybe 'She's worked so hard and did so well for our company, maybe she deserves to take a nice vacation, here's the most popular book for women to symbolize that'.

You are putting a bit too much thought into the decision making. I figure someone walked into the book store and picked the book from the first bestseller display. Never attribute to malice or ignorance what can adequately explained by lazy.

It is very common for abusive people to exploit this attitude and commit acts that are clearly over the line but have some barely plausible innocent explanation. Gaslighting the victim is, perhaps, another intentional part of the abuse.

You'd have to work pretty hard to convince me that gifting a young woman a sexually explicit novel is not malicious.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#67

Post by wyldfire »

howard941 wrote: post #2

Well at least they tried. I'm in a Fortune 500 with no IC/TC promotion path that spams the entire company with promotion announcements that land like insults every week.

It's way better than the secret promotions that happened where I used to work (a fortune 500 company). The levels were spaced much farther apart than FAANG and when someone did get promoted you'd only find out if they decided to make a change to their email signature.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#68

Post by StavrosK »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #51
StavrosK wrote: post #34

We need to find a name for a gesture so small in its generosity that it ends up being offensive. No bonus would have left me disappointed, but a $50 bonus would have made me angry. Like when Delta gave a food voucher to make up for a 5-hour delay on a 30-minute file. The voucher was for $3. Fuck Delta.

When my entire engineering team was laid off, work organized farewell drinks for us. Except they didn't actually budget for this. Their idea was that the whole office would go out and... celebrate? Us being laid off? And pay for it ourselves?

So they basically told you "you're fired, go to a bar"? Jesus, people...

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#69

Post by bena »

oarsinsync wrote: post #43
todd8 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WTF. I’m sorry I’m flabbergasted.

At least the book has an air of deniability ("we purchased the current top fiction book for women") I'm unable to think of an explanation for this that isn't terrible: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48348431

Obviously they just walked in to the closest sex shop and purchased the first vibrator in the "best selling" section.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#70

Post by bluedino »

tzakrajs wrote: post #66

Christmas 2010, HostGator gave everyone an e-cigarette or some other option but since we were mostly 20-somethings working there the vast majority chose the e-cigarette.

I bet the next week was glorious if everyone smoked them at their desks
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