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When employees feel slighted, they work less

penntoday.upenn.edu

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Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#21

Post by pinnochio »

There's a lot of jeering, I suspect at the headline more than anything, but having documented research can be helpful in changing management behavior. The changes in employee behavior documented here are not ones that managers would easily connect to their past behavior, such as a late birthday recognition.

When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't associate the reward with the behavior. Likewise, a manager is not going to associate a slight towards an employee with an increase in absenteeism or lower productivity that happens days and weeks later.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#22

Post by DamonHD »

trollbridge wrote: post #20
ghaff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really mind but I take a slight objection to supposedly confidential data (like birthday) being widely shared even with good intentions.

Birthdays are hardly confidential.

They should be unless you want to publish one of the things that too many (eg sites) regard as a reasonable secondary security verifier.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#23

Post by kotaKat »

From the further linked https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/when-employees-f... -

> "They found the perfect observational setting in the retail chain, which has a well-established policy that managers hand-deliver a card and small gift to each employee on their birthday. The company designed the policy to foster meaningful personal interactions and strengthen the employee-manager relationship"

> "The team found no issues when cards and gifts were given within a five-day window of the employee’s birthday"

Part of me wonders more now if the slight also comes from the expectation of receiving a gift under this policy? If someone told me "hey, happy birthday, dude" that'd be good enough for me.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#26

Post by Insanity »

trollbridge wrote: post #20
ghaff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really mind but I take a slight objection to supposedly confidential data (like birthday) being widely shared even with good intentions.

Birthdays are hardly confidential.

It depends on the culture/religion. Not everyone celebrates birthdays.

I had multiple ICs ask me not to say public birthday wishes, as they didn’t celebrate their birthday and/or did not want the rest of the team to know.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#27

Post by mejutoco »

pinnochio wrote: post #21

There's a lot of jeering, I suspect at the headline more than anything, but having documented research can be helpful in changing management behavior. The changes in employee behavior documented here are not ones that managers would easily connect to their past behavior, such as a late birthday recognition. When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't a…

> When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't associate the reward with the behavior

Regarding dog training, one can use a placeholder for the reward. This is useful, for example, if you want to reward a dolphin jumping through a hula, because you will not be able to give the reward at that moment, but for example, you can say "yes!" or use a clicker at that moment, and give the reward later, and it will be clear what caused it.

For anyone training any animal, I recommend the book: Don't Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training by Karen Pryor (not affiliated in any way)

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#28

Post by pinnochio »

nsgi wrote: post #25

As a Brit, the birthday card example feels oddly American. The effect seems plausible, but the UK equivalent slight would be something much more informal

I wonder if this is generationally specific. I'm an American and have zero expectation that anybody at work should acknowledge my birthday.

On the other hand, I can understand feeling slighted if the manager consistently recognizes their employees' birthdays but overlooks mine.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#29

Post by lotsofpulp »

Lord-Jobo wrote: post #12

Lots of “no shit” in these comments makes me wonder how many VP level managers you guys have interacted with. Maybe it’s just my location, but this is one of those things that legitimately NEVER makes it through to upper managers. When they tell their base managers to crack the whip and force them to give the whole “you are not working hard enough, tighten up. Shorter lunches, clock in 5 minutes early, etc” speech to…

> When they tell their base managers to crack the whip and force them to give the whole “you are not working hard enough, tighten up. Shorter lunches, clock in 5 minutes early, etc” speech to the base employees, they will absolutely feel resentment and do LESS work, not more.

The bosses with half a brain do this only when the supply of labor is increasing relative to demand for labor. The bet is that the sufficient employees won’t have a choice to find a different job, and people that fail to maintain the new pace can be replaced with newer, and maybe even cheaper employees.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#30

Post by pinnochio »

mejutoco wrote: post #27
pinnochio wrote: post #21

There's a lot of jeering, I suspect at the headline more than anything, but having documented research can be helpful in changing management behavior. The changes in employee behavior documented here are not ones that managers would easily connect to their past behavior, such as a late birthday recognition. When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't a…

> When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't associate the reward with the behavior Regarding dog training, one can use a placeholder for the reward. This is useful, for example, if you want to reward a dolphin jumping through a hula, because you will not be able to give the reward at that moment, but for example, you can say "yes!" or use a clicker a…

I suppose the employee-getting-revenge-on-manager equivalent would be playing some loud, annoying sound immediately after the slight, and then engaging in absenteeism and cutting work early later on.
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