Designing our work experience

Earlier this year Fortune magazine published it's annual list of the 100 best companies to work for in the U.S. Results are based on surveying employees. Sure, not all companies have jets or yachts to share with employees but there is still plenty to learn from reading the company snapshots.

The reasons these companies have been nominated as great places to work by those that work there are:

1. Good rewards
   • incentives, profit sharing, bonuses, above average pay for industry
2. Strong and clear company mission
3. Benefits
   • health insurance, health programs, childcare facilities, generous leave, workplace flexibility, other perks
4. Physical work environment
   • food, access to services like dry cleaning, even walking tracks
5. People
   • considered recruitment efforts, long tenure of employees
6. Culture
   • recognition of excellence, adherance to, and evaluation based on values, fun incentives, games and events, happiness commitees, herograms, "no jerk" culture
7. Feedback
   • Staff suggestions implemented, feedback mechanisms and forums in place
8. Visible leadership
   • Leaders touching base with employees regularly or based on high performance of teams
9. No layoffs
   • The US has faced tough economic times recently. Many companies on this list avoided lay-offs 
10. Career paths
    • Progression plans, internal promotion, investment in training and education
11.  Acknowledging role of families
    • Inclusion of families in company events, acknowlegement of their contribution supporting employees

To see all the company snapshots go to: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/best-companies/2012/snapshots/1.html

Do incentives work? Well the answer is yes and no. They work for rudimentary mechanical tasks, but when you up the cognitive anti, incentives fail to motivate. Not only that, they can negatively impact performance. Pay people enough so they are not thinking about money and can instead be free to concentrate on their performance. Also relevant to management practice is the idea of giving people autonomy. Think autonomy, mastery, and the purpose motive. Watch the video to see how this plays out.

Monetary incentives are the petri dish where motivation grows in work environments, particularly in sales. Whether the culture that forms is a healthy one or not depends on context. Customers' expectations of service providers are changing. People expect service not just sales. So how do you design an incentive scheme that supports customer service and results in sales?

I don't pretend to know the answers. All I know from my experience as a service designer is that incentives (and remuneration) are factors that someone needs to be thinking about when change is being rolled out.

The paper "Personnel Economics: The Economist's View of Human Resources" provides an overview of HR from an economic perspective. I hope to share enough of it so that you might read the whole piece. Here's the teaser: