There are a million blogs on getting more out of your employees. This one is different. Instead of suggesting that you motivate your employees, I tell you how to DEMOTIVATE your workers.
While your first reaction is probably, “Dr. Young is crazy.” Think about it. Companies spend thousands of dollars trying to motivate their employees to simply do their jobs—in addition to the salary you give them every week. This is money wasted because there is no way to motivate workers. Employees are by nature, lazy selfish beings who simply want to suck every cent they can out of your pocket.
All your employees want you to do is pay them and leave them alone. They want you to:
Let them wander in and out of the office whenever they feel like it.
Let them do their jobs as they see fit—or not do them if they choose.
Leave them alone.
If you follow these three simple rules you will have a happy, contented workforce who think you walk on water. Unfortunately, you won’t have much of a business. This blog will show you how to get more out of your employees and counteract the bad advice they get on the web.
Just this moring, I was reading an article by Jennifer Sommersby Young (obviously no relation!) at www.savvymiss.com where I came upon these charming pieces of advice that Joy Gugeler the editor-in-chief of www.Suite101.com gives to single workers:
1. “Be clear about monitoring your work hours. If you have a tendency to stay late, and therefore the assumption is that you can/will, look at your activities so you can have a place to be after work. .”
2. “Take full advantage of vacations, book them in advance, give your dates, and don’t go into detail about where you’re going, with whom or why.”
“When you’re signing up for a company-sponsored event, make sure to always mark it ‘+1.’ Whether you bring someone, romantic or otherwise, is not the point. The point is that there are different kinds of arrangements and 1+1=2, no matter its romantic hierarchy.”
If all of your workers took Ms. Gugeler’s advice and got a life, you wouldn’t have much of a business. Not only would your workers feel free to choose how they spend THEIR time, they’d spend all your money by bringing their friends to your work functions.
Jennifer Sommersby Young is a great journalist and a champion dog breeder who knows how to get people to open up. I suggest that readers who to need to find out what their workers think of their jobs contact her because she knows how to get to the meat of the story. In the same article she quotes Nazanin, a 20-something executive assistant, who suggests that single workers lie to their boss about their activities. Nazanin says: “tell your boss that you have a partner or that you have a lot of family obligations.”
If all your workers followed this sort of bad advice that is freely available on the Web, you’d be out of business in a matter of minutes. The demotivationist shows you how to strike back.
To stay one step in front of the competition, check out my latest book: Dr. Young’s Guide to Demotivating Employees at www.dolyttle.com.
While I don’t really have any interest in hearing what you have to say about anything, if you have a burning desire to get something off your chest, email me: dryoung@demotivationist.com.
