Page Title

A Better Place to Work

March 6, 2000

"Three important elements need to be in place to assure that people can be at the peak of their productivity:

* People need full control and autonomy at work.  The job has to be their responsibility, and they must be able to make all important decisions related to their work.  At the same time, the role of management becomes one of coordinating, being available as a resource of experience and support, and serving as coaches and mentors.

* People need to learn and master new knowledge and skills.  Successful learning in itself becomes a source of motivation and builds self-esteem.  In addition, learning makes people more flexible and lets them understand the interrelationships of a business (i.e., the dependence of each segment of an operation on the others).  They must know enough about the enterprise to detect problems, understand the total system affecting those problems, and be able to contribute their ideas, insights, and experience to solving those problems.

* People need to be part of a work team that gives them a base of support and allows them to find their own level of challenge.  Work teams make it possible to assign meaningful work segments to a group of people and broadening their responsibilities.  This, in turn, makes work more enjoyable.

These three factors tend to operate as an ever-evolving system in which people develop their talents, abilities, and relationships so that the individual and the team can be more productive, enable the organization to move on to greater successes (Haasen & Shea, 1997, pp. 92-93)."

Reference:  Haasen A. & Shea, G.F. (1997).  A better place to work: a new sense of motivation leading to high productivity.  New York: American Management Briefing.

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Created: 2009-01-02, Updated: 2009-01-12