Morale Boosters at Work: The BS Approach

Picture this: my company is training for a new system (it's called PACE) that will replace all existing systems and form a solid central way of tracking, paying and doing things. It's a big undertaking and many people have been frustrated or annoyed at the prospect of learning an entirely new way to do their everyday tasks. I have seen how parts will fit together, from Sales to Purchasing and Accounting. I think it will be a great tool if everyone pulls their own weight.

That said, I find it amusing that certain people find a need to boost company morale by instituting ridiculous practices. I think most "morale boosting" in the corporate and even not so corporate sector, is Bullshit. I worked for a company where the owner insisted that you read these "self-help morale booster" type books. I read half of the first one and threw the second and third away. Why? because it was all common sense. I don't need a book to tell me how to treat my customers and what works and what doesn't. Perhaps others felt it was helpful b/c they were lacking in common sense, but I felt that it was a waste of my time.

The morale boosts I have seen are a fancy way of blowing smoke up the employee's asses and making them focus on something completely ridiculous so they won't bitch about their work or current company practices. Yes, in the end company morale does improve, but only for a short period. Then the fun is done and people eventually realize the trick and sink further into their apathetic work habits.

Let's take Lean Manufacturing; something my company is instituting right now. Basically they are flowering the ideas to get everyone on board but if you read between the lines it's basically saying that we can do the same amount of work with less employees to pay. Yes, for the company, streamlining is a money and time saver, of course this is a good plan for them. However, those employees who's positions will be cut as a result, it does not bode well and sadly, many of them don't even realize it.(so I guess it is working).

I guess in most situations, like lean manufacturing, companies try to boost morale with fancy slogans or hype of a new project because they assume the loyal employees will follow them anywhere and the others are too stupid to understand the real situation. Obviously if I owned a company I would probably be worried about the bottom line and not about losing a few dozen deadweight employees, but for sake of argument, I see it from the employee position.

My next rant on morale boosting has to do with one of THE most ridiculous I have ever seen. Seriously, you will laugh at this (I hope).

Since we are instituting the new operating system that is company wide, our sales departments (or someone in them) has decided that decorating their proceedures manual for the system would be a great way to show your pride. Are we on the High School Pep Squad? Big Geek had told me that they had a whole table set up (complete with a sign that reads "Decorate your PACE Folder Station") with glitter pens, sharpies, feathers, bedazzle-type sticker beads etc. Oh and it gets better:

The Customer Service Rep who sits next to the table MUST be the culprit because she has brightly colored paper hung on the outside of her cubicle that reads "PACE Bring it on!". She isn't even the head of the department, but she is obviously the cheerleader. Perhaps she always wanted to be a cheerleader but never got on the squad and now she is taking her dream back!

Wouldn't their time be better spent by dealing with exisiting customer's orders and finding new customers to sell to? I think all this arts and craft stuff is a major time waster and if they can do that, I will NOT feel guilty for blogging as often as I do!!

I also hear that our visual guy is coming up with a Tagline for our Lean manufacturing..."Lean on Me". That sucks and I better come up with something better: how about "Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no LEAN."? Yeah, I crack myself up.

Does anyone else think these practices are futile and ridiculous?

Well, I guess all I can say is, get out those gel pens and stickers and Bring it on!