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Myths About Workers
Employers continue to buy into myths about workers. These myths include:
- Employees will never be happy with their pay. On the average, 40% of workers rate their pay as "good" or "very good," 23% rate it as "poor" or "very poor," and the rest (37%) rate their pay as middling.
- Employees object to the large difference between their earnings and those of senior management. Workers are upset by this discrepancy only when a company that is doing poorly financially demands wage and job cuts from most employees, while upper management remains unaffected. Employees at superior-performing companies don’t complain about upper management’s high salaries when most workers are also benefiting.
- Complimenting employees on a job well done goes to their heads and increases their demands for more money. Recognition by management is one of the most powerful motivators of continued good performance and high morale. It is the lack of recognition that depresses most people’s natural desire to want to do a good job.
- Companies that have no hesitation laying off workers perform better than those that go to great lengths to keep their workers employed. “Research shows that downsizing companies outperformed the S&P only slightly during the 6 months following news of a restructuring, and then lagged badly, netting a negative 24 percent by the end of 3 years. The theory of keeping a company ‘lean and mean,’ then, may really only be making it mean.”
- Most employees are lazy and need to be controlled. The authors’ research definitively shows that the overwhelming majority of employees are industrious, want to do a good job, and derive satisfaction from their work.
- Most employees resist change, whatever it is. Employees resist changes that they see as harmful to themselves or their organizations, such as speeding up the pace, which hurts work quality. However, they gladly welcome changes they see as helpful, such as new equipment that helps them do their jobs better. Employees are also resistant to changes that management secretly develops without their input and springs on them at the last minute.
Instead of continuing to perpetrate these myths, management policies need to be directed toward satisfying the three primary goals that matter most too all employees. These are:
- Equity - to be treated fairly
- Achievement - to be proud of one’s job and company
- Camaraderie - to have good, productive relationships with fellow employees
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Employees who work for companies where just one of these three factors is missing are three times less enthusiastic than workers at companies where all elements are present. They also receive more customer complaints; have higher employee turnover, and lower quality
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