Reference no: EM133032391

Case 1
Consider for a moment a midlevel manager at a multinational foods company, Fatima, who would seem to be at the top of her career. She's consistently making her required benchmarks and goals, she has built successful relationships with colleagues, and senior management have identified her as "high potential." But she isn't happy with her work. She'd be much more interested in understanding how her organization can use social media in marketing efforts. Ideally, she'd like to quit and find something that better suits her passions, but in the current economic environment this may not be an option. So she has decided to proactively reconfigure her current job. Fatima is part of a movement toward job "crafting," which is the process of deliberately reorganizing your job so that it better fits your motives, strengths, and passions. The core of job crafting is creating diagrams of day-to-day activities with a coach. Then you and the coach collaboratively identify which tasks fit with your personal passions, and which tend to drain motivation and satisfaction. Next the client and coach work together to imagine ways to emphasize preferred activities and de-emphasize those that are less interesting. Many people engaged in job crafting find that upon deeper consideration, they have more control over their work than they thought. So how did Fatima craft her job? She first noticed that she was spending too much of her time monitoring her team's performance and answering team questions, and not enough time working on the creative projects that inspire her. She then considered how to modify her relationship with the team so that these activities incorporated her passion for social media strategies, with team activities more centered around developing new marketing. She also identified members of her team who might be able to help her implement these new strategies and directed her interactions with these individuals toward her new goals. As a result, not only has her engagement in her work increased, but she has also developed new ideas that are being recognized and advanced within the organization. In sum, she has found that by actively and creatively examining her work, she has been able to craft her current job into one that is truly satisfying.

Question 1. Why do you think many people are in jobs that are not satisfying? Do organizations help people craft satisfying and motivating jobs, and if not, why not?

Question 2. Think about how you might reorient yourself to your own job. Are the principles of job crafting described above relevant to your work? Why or why not?

Question 3. Some contend that job crafting sounds good in principle but is not necessarily available to everyone. What types of jobs are probably not amenable to job crafting activities?

Question 4. Are there any potential drawbacks to the job crafting approach? How can these concerns be minimized?

Case 2
It might seem obvious that people will be motivated by bonuses, but many scholars question this premise. Alfie Kohn has long suggested that workers are "punished by rewards" and urges that organizations avoid tying rewards to performance because of the negative consequences that can result. As an alternative to rewards, some experts recommend that managers foster a positive, upbeat work environment in hopes that enthusiasm will translate into motivation. Although rewards can be motivating, they can reduce employees' intrinsic interest in the tasks they are doing. Along these lines, Mark Lepper of Stanford University found that children rewarded for drawing with felt-tip pens no longer wished to use the pens at all when rewards were removed, whereas children who were not rewarded for using the pens were eager to use them. Similar experiments in which children completed puzzles have also shown that increasing rewards can decrease interest in the rewarded task. Some have questioned the extent to which these results generalize to working adults, but concern about rewards diminishing intrinsic motivation persists. Rewards can also lead to misbehavior by workers. Psychologist Edward Deci notes, "Once you start making people's rewards dependent on outcomes rather than behaviors, the evidence is people will take the shortest route to those outcomes." Consider factory workers paid purely based on the number of units they produce. Because only quantity is rewarded, workers may neglect quality. Executives rewarded strictly on the basis of quarterly stock price will tend to ignore the long-term profitability and survival of the firm; they might even engage in illegal or unethical behavior to increase their compensation. A review of research on pay-for-performance in medicine found that doctors who were rewarded for treatment outcomes were reluctant to take on the most serious cases, where success was less likely. Although there might be some problems with providing incentives, the great majority of research cited in this and the previous chapter shows that individuals given rewards for behavior will be more likely to engage in the rewarded behaviors. It is also unlikely that individuals engaged in very boring, repetitive tasks will lose their intrinsic motivation if the task is rewarded, because they never had any intrinsic motivation to begin with. The real issue for managers is finding an appropriate way to reward behaviors so desired behavior is increased while less-desired behavior is reduced.

Question 1. Do you think that, as a manager, you would use bonuses regularly? Why or why not?

Question 2. Can you think of a time in your own life when being evaluated and rewarded on a specific goal lead you to engage in negative or unproductive behavior?

Question 3. Do you think providing group bonuses instead of individual bonuses would be more effective or less effective? Why or why not?

Question 4. How would you design a bonus/reward program to avoid the problems mentioned in this case?

Case 3

Lifelong commitment to one employer is a thing of the past. An analysis by Princeton economist Henry Farber revealed that the percentage of private-sector employees who remained with the same employer for 10 or more years has dropped from 50 percent in 1973 to less than 35 percent today. Those with 20 or more years with the same employer dropped from 35 percent to 20 percent. To be sure, some of this movement is employer-driven. Lifetime job security is long gone for most positions. So are benefit packages that would keep employees secure, such as rock-solid pensions and generous health benefits. But does a generational shift in values also explain the drop? According to Pew Research, 66 percent of Millennials say they want to switch careers some time in their life, while 62 percent of Generation X members and 84 percent of Baby Boomers say they would prefer to stay at their current job for the rest of their lives. Another study suggested that while 64 percent of Baby Boomers "really care about the fate" of their organization, this figure is only 47 percent for Millennials. Yet another study indicated that two-thirds of Millennials had plans to move or "surf" from one job to another as a means of gaining desired skills and increasing their pay. One Millennial, Rebecca Thorman, notes that mobility makes sense only because if you aren't mobile, you limit your options. She says you can't expect your pay to grow "by staying at the same job . . . You just can't." These values don't sit well with some employers. "We prefer long tenured employees who have stuck with us and been loyal," says Dave Foster, CEO of AvreaFoster, an advertising agency in Dallas. "It appears that a lot of Millennials don't think that one path is the answer. This is a problem because the commitment isn't there." To attitudes like that, Thorman retorts, "We're not going to settle."

Question 1. In your experience, do younger individuals differ from older individuals in their plans to remain with one employer for a long time? Do you think these differences, if you believe they exist, are due to shifting economic realities or to changing work values?

Question 2. Do you think you should feel free to "job surf"- purposely moving from job to job as soon as the desire strikes? Do you think employers have a right to ask about "job surfing" plans when they interview you?

Question 3. If you had an interview with Foster or someone with his views of Millennials, how might you combat his preconceptions?