Corporate Gold Stars and E for Effort

[spydah]

Did your current or former job ever come up with an initiative that was silly or stupid to motivate you? Maybe they came close to offering gold stars for doing a good job? Or maybe they tried to spin casual Friday as a reward when you previously already have a casual Friday?

I recall, in my last job, we got customized chocolate bars that said "We can't spell s_ccess without U!" We all kinda laughed and then we ate the chocolate bars!

Entertain me!

[justme]

My company is putting together a working group to figure out how to improve morale without incurring more cost. Good luck with that, a big reason why morale sucks is because you have been cutting benefits for the last 3 years. And they're doing it kinda crapily too - like saying we're taking your 3 sick days but in return you get Black Friday off as a holiday! We get two years of the new holiday, and then they sneak into some update at the end/beginning of the year that it's no longer a holiday, but apparently most don't read that and it wasn't advertised (even though the company has a fiscal calendar that shows this stuff) so all of a sudden everyone is freaking out this month because they don't have that day off anymore.

[Abby Normal]

Did your current or former job ever come up with an initiative that was silly or stupid to motivate you?

They dangle my paycheck from a stick like a carrot and say "what are you willing to do for it now". Kind of annoying.

[spydah]

Nov 19, 2013 19:21:18 GMT -5 justme said:

My company is putting together a working group to figure out how to improve morale without incurring more cost. Good luck with that, a big reason why morale sucks is because you have been cutting benefits for the last 3 years. And they're doing it kinda crapily too - like saying we're taking your 3 sick days but in return you get Black Friday off as a holiday! We get two years of the new holiday, and then they sneak into some update at the end/beginning of the year that it's no longer a holiday, but apparently most don't read that and it wasn't advertised (even though the company has a fiscal calendar that shows this stuff) so all of a sudden everyone is freaking out this month because they don't have that day off anymore.

That's not cool at all!

[spydah]

Nov 19, 2013 19:32:59 GMT -5 Abby Normal said:

Did your current or former job ever come up with an initiative that was silly or stupid to motivate you?

They dangle my paycheck from a stick like a carrot and say "what are you willing to do for it now". Kind of annoying.

I have a simple solution for that. They pretend to pay me and I pretend to work! [img]http://syonidv.hodginsmedia.com/vsmileys/angel2.png[/img]

[justme]

Nov 22, 2013 0:34:43 GMT -5 spydah said:

Nov 19, 2013 19:21:18 GMT -5 justme said:

My company is putting together a working group to figure out how to improve morale without incurring more cost. Good luck with that, a big reason why morale sucks is because you have been cutting benefits for the last 3 years. And they're doing it kinda crapily too - like saying we're taking your 3 sick days but in return you get Black Friday off as a holiday! We get two years of the new holiday, and then they sneak into some update at the end/beginning of the year that it's no longer a holiday, but apparently most don't read that and it wasn't advertised (even though the company has a fiscal calendar that shows this stuff) so all of a sudden everyone is freaking out this month because they don't have that day off anymore.

That's not cool at all!

Yeah, not sure why it's a surprise to them morale is low. Hell, I was one of the lucky few that went to a conference and won two quarter awards this year and MY morale is low, so others' have to be worse!

But hey, when you send 12 people to a conference that's focused on training and only 4 of the people that went aren't management (i.e. the people that actually still do client work) and only 2 aren't senior it doesn't seem like the company cares much about improving peoples' skills. Us lowly people only went because we had papers in the conference and it woulda looked shitty if we had to back out. Oh and lets add that management didn't do a damn thing trying to get us newbies integrated, none of them invited us out (or even introduced us! I didn't meet 2 of the other "low ends" until the third day!). Yeah, I've already made it clear to my manager how crappy it was based on what I saw other companies do while I was there, not sure anyone listened to him though.

[spydah]

Nov 22, 2013 0:50:45 GMT -5 justme said:

Nov 22, 2013 0:34:43 GMT -5 spydah said:

They are going about it wrong if they want to improve morale. I wonder what new surprises your company has in store. Do you guys get bonuses? If so, when?

My company had me pay for a conference out of my own pocket with the promise that they "may reimburse some or all of the conference fee in December." At this point I'm not expecting to be reimburse one cent, so anything more will be a surprise.

[Works4me]

The beatings will continue until morale improves!

[skubikky]

They motivate us with money.
Commission, bonuses and other ways to get more money.

[wvugurl26]

One of the prizes in the raffle at the Christmas party is lunch with one of the top managers. No one in my office thinks that's a prize, more like a punishment.

[Deleted]

Nov 22, 2013 7:22:32 GMT -5 wvugurl26 said:

One of the prizes in the raffle at the Christmas party is lunch with one of the top managers. No one in my office thinks that's a prize, more like a punishment.

We had a United Way auction and one of the "prizes" was lunch with a senior executive who was not well-liked.  I'm not sure if anybody bid on it.

But back to the OT- at my first job, every year the holiday calendar would come out and Black Friday was not one of them.  Every year my boss would call us in because too many people were planning to take the day off, and he encouraged those who were staying local to take another day instead.  Every year at the last minute we'd get the memo saying we were all such good little girls and boys we could have Black Friday off.  I was there for 3 years and it got kind of annoying.

Same company- the holiday party one year was a performance of The Nutcracker.  I'd already bought tickets in good seats, which I was able to sell, and of course the ones I was issued weren't great- I was entry level.  They told us to be there at a time that was soon enough after work that most of us just headed straight over there since dinner was to follow the performance.  We had to wait for a long time because it turned out the peons were told to arrive an hour earlier than they actually needed because they wanted to make sure that we wouldn't be late.  Word was quietly put out among the executives that they could be there an hour later.  By the time we got to the buffet at about 9:30 PM most of us were so starved we were snatching food and eating it as we loaded our plates.  It was actually a pretty good company- they just did a few silly things.

[Deleted]

At the end of a project in January, they gave me a spot award of $4000.  They trued it up with taxes also, so it was actually valued over $7000.  Like that is any motivation... 

#yaright

[justme]

Nov 22, 2013 1:45:58 GMT -5 spydah said:

Nov 22, 2013 0:50:45 GMT -5 justme said:

They are going about it wrong if they want to improve morale. I wonder what new surprises your company has in store. Do you guys get bonuses? If so, when?

My company had me pay for a conference out of my own pocket with the promise that they "may reimburse some or all of the conference fee in December." At this point I'm not expecting to be reimburse one cent, so anything more will be a surprise.

No, no bonuses - at least not for non-managers (though they finally suspended all bonuses this year). To be fair, it's a government contractor company so it's not like business is recovering as much as other industries are. I just think they've treated the top different than those on the bottom and I don't think it's fair to decide to cut benefits for us, but they get to keep them. Like last year they had someone new in HR that accidentally let it slip to our office that the executives (and maybe managers?) were still getting the $275 wellness bonus while the rest of the company had had it cut to $100 for the last two years. They finally cut everyone to $100 this year. It's not a lot of money, but it definitely makes things an us vs. them.

[HoneyBBQ]

Instead of $5,000 bonuses, our boss forgot to submit the paperwork, so we all got an itouch (not pod, not a phone) instead.

yeah, that was a great motivator.

[Deleted]

We have a 3 tiered "good job" award system.  While gifts can be selected, most people take the Amex gift cards of $50,$75, or $100 value depending on award level.  What I hear is most people who get $50 or $75 complain they didn't get $100 versus being happy they were recognized.. 

[sarcasticgirl]

We get merit raises and merit bonuses... but aside from that, nada. 

My dept is currently doing lots of testing and projects with tons of Overtime so we've been able to cater in lunch every other week for the past month and a half on the company's dime. I guess that is sort of something 

[sarcasticgirl]

That reminds me... DH's company gives out things called "High Fives"
Upper management can nominate someone for the award and it comes with a little gift card. DH just got another high five... GC was $20.

[Nazgul Girl]

   I think I have a story that will come close to equalling the worst of the stories above.   My area ( with about 100-150 employees ) was told to start a morale committee by the management.   So, three "lucky" gals volunteered for it, but they were given no budget with which  to build morale.   Understandably not wanting to pay for prizes and such out of their own pockets, they resorted to collecting small rocks, washing them, and painting them with the (famous) color scheme and symbol of our storied employer.    Oh My God !!!    
  
    One member announced in a coder  meeting that they needed suitable rocks to be donated.   She's a friendly acquaintance of mine, so afterward, I asked her if they were serious about the rocks.    She said yes, because they didn't want to spend a couple of hours hunting up rocks.    They already spent time washing and painting the damned things.

    I told her to please never give me one of those things, because I don't want a cheap-ass rock painted with a big ugly "Letter" on it !!    Also, I hate the institution's color scheme.    She said that she agreed ! 

    Talk about cheap !   Writing this raises my morale more than some fucking rock would.

    If I wrote the name of the institution, you would all just die.  

[HoneyBBQ]

[HoneyBBQ]

[movingforward]

My old supervisor used to "grace us" with a holiday party but we had to pay for it ourselves .

[emma1420]

The only non financial, non-time off, non-benefit related thing that has ever motivated me was the respect of my boss of my opinions and expertise.  And honestly that wouldn't mean that much if I wasn't rewarded financially and my benefits kept being cut on a regular basis.

IME, if a company needs a motivational committee then they don't care or respect their employees.  Because those committees are never empowered to improve benefits or salaries, and those are the things that motivate most people.

[Happy prose]

My office (gov. agency) gives out a few meritorious service awards at the Christmas party. It's a little thing to hang on your office wall. The Christmas party costs $65 a ticket. Not one ounce of motivation!