11–20 of 56 posts
Some thrive on open-ended projects, some thrive with bite-sized chunks of work with quick feedback.
For me, as an employer, I tend to go look at their car. If it's a mess inside, then I tend to lump them in the "needs quick feedback" category.
Workers work harder in a recession. No big surprise. But I fail to see a clear link between a recession and "punishment or pampering".
The one is a general climate which makes you value your job more, and the other is an act of relationship between you and your employer. It's not at all clear whether punishment or pampering is more effective at making you value your job (or your employer) more.
I would suspect that a more valuable line of approach than looking at recession statistics (who's going to manufacture a recession to get their employees to stay?) would be to ask a parent of children whether to use the carrot of the stick. They would probably point out that:
1)All their children are different and respond differently
2)Both negative and positive feedback are needed, but at different times, and in complicated ways.
Edit: clarity of language
This debate has been around for half a century. It's far, far more nuanced than this article suggests. Here's the original formulation of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y But it's not that Theory Y is necessarily "better". It depends on tons of different variables. And there have been plenty more theories after X and Y...
http://nplusonemag.com/the-intellectual-situation-issue-15
tl;dr: banned from Reddit
This debate has been around for half a century. It's far, far more nuanced than this article suggests. Here's the original formulation of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y But it's not that Theory Y is necessarily "better". It depends on tons of different variables. And there have been plenty more theories after X and Y...
Specifically Theory Z - which can probably be summed up as "some combination of both X and Y"
If, as management, you are ignoring your employees, you aren't doing your job well.
Negative attention can produce short term positive results, because the employee acquires focus. Long term, employees with self-respect will leave. If you can replace them with a robot, you should do that ASAP.
Positive attention can produce both short and long term positive results, but positive attention which is not earned will be converted into negative attention when the employee figures out you are not sincere. Don't be a hypocrite.
Assuming their model is even correct (I didn't see an attempt to test the model itself in this paper) that would mean jobs which are not associated with easy theft would not benefit from getting the big brother treatment.
But that's just my evaluation based on skimming it.
Neither. What's even better (at least for creative workers like programmers and designers) is autonomy and ownership.