Many years ago, I worked at a company where the culture
encouraged sick people to come to work, regardless.  We
would often joke that the only doctor’s note the company
would accept as valid was a Death Certificate.

Then, there were always those die-hard employees who took
it one step further.  These people felt that their loyalty
was measured by their presence at work despite how ill
they were. 

For some, it was a badge of honor to be at work, coughing
with a fever of 102 degrees.  They would talk about this
for months.

HR CONTRARIAN POINTER: We in management are often placed
in the position of not only protecting employees from one
another, but also protecting some employees from
themselves.

If this year’s flu season lives up to the hype, there will
be a lot of sick people at companies and a lot of lost
productivity.  We may not be able to prevent the flu from
hurting our productivity, but we can certainly take action
to limit the damage.

We in management need to give our employees permission to
stay home from work when they are sick.  We also need to
send home those die-hard employees who risk spreading
their illness to others by coming to work when sick.

Here is a link to the Centers for Disease Control with
some excellent resources that you can print and give to
your employees.
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

Begin the discussions now and hopefully you can limit your
company’s losses when the winter months are upon us.

There is a mismatch between what science knows about
behavior and what business does.

Extrinsic rewards do work to promote specific behaviors
BUT ONLY in a very narrow set of circumstances.

Research has shown that for tasks with a simple set of
rules and that require “mechanical skills,” extrinsic
rewards work best to achieve desired results.  Example: A
stock broker is told, “Here is a new stock offering.  Go
selling it to X number of people and you will receive X
rewards.”  The rules are clear, the sales process is
rather routine, and the incentives promised for specific
volumes of sales can be a motivator.

But studies have shown that as soon as the tasks require
higher level cognitive skills, the presence of financial
rewards can often result in poorer performance!  This is
part of the reason why salespeople who sell on price are
very seldom successful when transitioning to sales
positions that require them to sell on value.

HR CONTRARIAN POINTER: The secret to high performance in
the 21st century for the vast majority of employees is that
unseen intrinsic drive to be part of something larger than
themselves and to do work because it matters.

The intrinsic rewards that are employed most often are:
1. Autonomy – The urge to be in control of our own lives.
2. Mastery – The desire to get better and better at
something that matters.
3. Purpose – The yearning to do what we do in the service
of something that is larger than ourselves.

If you can combine intrinsic rewards with the blog post
info on 9/9/09 titled, “Incentives Work Best One Level
Up,” you have a powerful tool for reshaping your
organization.