Pizza lifts the team
Free pizza and boosted egos make happy staff, according to a new book that looks at what motivates people.
New York Magazine reported that in author Dan Ariely’s book Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations , he describes an experiment using workers at an Intel factory in Israel.
Workers got one of three messages at the start of their work week, each promising a different reward if they got all their work done.
One offered a cash bonus (about US$30, or NZ$41), another offered a rare compliment from the boss (a text message saying, ‘‘Well done!’’) and the third was a voucher for free pizza.
A fourth lot of workers got no email, acting as the control group.
It turned out people really like pizza and compliments: after the first day, pizza was the top motivator, but was closely followed by a compliment.
On the second day, those who received the money email performed 13.2 per cent worse than the control group and ultimately, the cash bonus ended up costing the company more and resulted in a 6.5 per cent fall in productivity.
The pizza and compliments group evened out to a productivity level closer to the control group, but it was still better than no reward at all, .
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania professor Adam Grant told the Wall Street Journal last year that some motivators can stop having meaning - so a pay rise feels like something you were owed.
‘‘Your bonus gets spent, your new title doesn’t sound so important once you have it,’’ he told the Wall Street Journal. ’’But the sense that other people appreciate what you do sticks with you.’’