One of the questions that employers have asked for centuries is how to get employees to work harder without paying them more money. According to research conducted by three economists that is published on the economics commentary website VoxEU, the answer is to give them meaningful work.
According to the research, knowing that you matter really does matter. In a survey of four hundred and thirteen students in Hangzhou, China, academics were able to increase worker output by telling one group of study participants that their data input work was of great importance to a research project.
A second group was told the work was simply a quality check and would probably never be used to support actual research. As indicated by writer Harriet Torry, the performance of those told that their work was of great importance ranked about fifteen percent higher. Public recognition can matter too.
Among study participants in the group whose work was said to have little value, a smiley button presented to the best performing worker in front of peers boosted output by eighteen percent. This suggests that all those worker of the month awards supplied at businesses across the U.S. may really make a positive difference for worker effort and the bottom line.
