The objective of this paper is to address to questions raised at the end of the captioned case study.
Question 1: Which motivation theory(s) do you think would help communicate the importance of vacation time to your employees?
I would use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, positive reinforcement and expectancy theory to help communicate the importance of vacation time to my employees. Maslow’s hierarchy of need will help emphasise the need of being social and role of family in building intimacy and belongingness. The communication will work towards need creation in the employees mind to crave for family timing and time to retrospect. I will use the expectancy theory to make them believe that vacations benefit the employee as well as the company. When the employees take a short three-day break, I will use positive reinforcement to build their confidence to take more vacations and longer ones. I will applaud them in public, so that they feel happy about their decision and repeat it in future. This will also motivate other employees to follow the suit.
Question 2: How would you convince your employees that working fewer hours, not more is more beneficial for them and the company?
I will use data to convince my employees that working fewer hours is more beneficial for them and the company. I will enlist the negative side effects on the health and wellbeing of an overworked employee, like reduction in efficiency, depression, stress, physical illness and problems in the spinal cord. I will back my point with psychological studies done in this field. The negative effect of overtime on employee productivity is one thing I will focus on. South Korea is one of the worst performers in terms of employee productivity and this has strong correlation with the number of extra hours the employees spend in office. I will also tell them about the biological need of the body to rejuvenate self periodically, so that it can perform better. I will reinforce the need to take a break to bond with family and come back to work with a fresh mind to improve employee productivity.
