Paying Attention Matters – Go Figure

Recently I heard a story on NPR about a firm who specialized in helping companies watch workers to improve productivity. (I’m sorry – today I tried to find the story so I could include a link, but I couldn’t.) The story said that when this company installed cameras to watch workers do their jobs, the workers made fewer mistakes. In another instance, productivity went up. They talked about posting performance metrics on the wall of the work area and performance went up. You’d think they had discovered the Holy Grail.

What they discovered is that when you pay attention to workers, their performance improves. When you measure worker’s performance – and give them regular feedback – their performance improves.  What I think they discovered was the “Hawthorne Effect” first identified in 1950 by Henry Landsberger when looking a data from a study at the Hawthorne Works conducted in the 1920’s and 30’s.

I won’t regale you with the details. The gist of the story is that the researchers segregated a group of workers and kept varying their working conditions to see what the impact would be on productivity. They raised the light level, lowered the light level, fed them breakfast, etc. In virtually all cases, no matter what the researchers changed, the workers still outperformed their peers in a control group. The conclusion: while changes in the work environment can improve productivity, the amount of improvement is overshadowed by the improvement that comes from paying attention and giving the workers feedback.

As a general rule, people like to know what’s going on and how they are doing. They like to know you care. John Maxwell says “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” You’ll get a bigger increase in productivity from taking the time to say “good morning” and “how are you” to your employee’s each day than you will from most of the latest management fads.

As a young Industrial Engineer I often heard “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” I believe this to be true. I also have seen many times that simply finding a basic measurement of work and posting it in the work area will improve productivity. You don’t necessarily need to set a goal. You don’t need to create some formal competition between workers. Just show them how they are doing, and they’ll do it better.

So, my advice today is to engage with your employees; give them feedback; help them measure their productivity and quality; thank them for their efforts; and then sit back and watch the productivity gains roll in.

Explore posts in the same categories: Performance Mgmt, Uncategorized

Tags: Effectiveness, Incentives, Management, Organization Development, Performance Management

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