20 November 2009

How to demotivate your workforce

  • tell them they are "high cost" compared to Egyptian, Indian or Rumanian counterparts.
  • tell them that, despite the company being afloat in cash, there's no money for pay increases for the N-th year running.
  • tell them that the money is "reserved to the mergers&acquisitions strategy". We don't reward our workforce, we reward our competitors; as soon as you can, please go and become one.
  • tell them that "promotions with no pay increase" are perfectly normal. Same for workload increases. Imply that you should count yourself lucky to still have a job. The beatings will continue until morale improves.
  • tell them that, if you don't like it, they have a choice (i.e. walking). But at the same time, "we have to get better at sharing knowledge". Sure, I'll get to that right away (not).
  • give them new internal systems that don't work. When workers complain, dismiss them as whiners. Make sure there is no plan-B after The Big Go-Live. Once TBGL results in complete customer-affecting disaster, panic.
Time to work on personal projects. Big time. Dear SUN employees in Europe, you really really should cheer for the EU. May you be spared a terrible fate.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Uh oh.

I can relate about the "sharing knowledge" idiocy^H^H^H^H^H^Hissue A LOT.

Anonymous said...

Another common one: Work with subpar (Indian) colleagues. When things don't go well, they complain and write complaint letters all the way to your directors. But eventually, they don't offer potential solutions. Typically they reply, what do you think I should do then.