Motivating Today's Work Force: When the Carrot Can't Always be Cash

Peter Strathy is Vice-President Planning, Doctors’ Hospital, Toronto.

Grensing is a business consultant who specializes in business and
personal-management topics. She is also a freelance writer (who has
published widely) and a creative-writing instructor.

Productivity of the work force, in both the private and public sectors,
is the dominant organization issue of the 1990s. Canada’s productivity
performance through the 1970s and 1980s has been particularly dismal in
comparison to that of other Western competitors. One result is the
current deep recession, which is mainly characterized by major
restructuring—including large work-force reductions—and by a strong
emphasis on generating increased productivity to achieve economic
recovery. To remain viable, firms and their employees are having to work
harder and smarter with fewer human resources to achieve higher levels
of output. A new and very serious focus on increased product/service
quality to meet and/or exceed customer expectations parallels the focus
on productivity.

This book presents a smorgasbord of nonmonetary incentive techniques,
theories, and programs, and includes most of the human-resources
management techniques (i.e., management by objectives, job enrichment,
participative management, and quality circles) developed and taught in
schools of business during the past 15 years. Several dozen examples of
these techniques are included.

The easy-to-read material makes the book accessible and useful to
anyone with a high-school education. Business owners, managers,
supervisors, or shop stewards can find here some new ideas and methods
to apply in their relationships with employees/workers. The book’s
main flaw is its failure to include a presentation of the “total
quality management/continuous quality improvement” concepts. These
concepts are fast becoming the dominant motivational methods used in
large industrial and public-sector organizations.

This book should be in all public libraries with a business section.