CASE STUDY : MOTIVATING SITE PERSONNEL

Young Andrew Hill had Harry Hall puzzled. How can you accuse one of your best bricklaying site
foremen of loafing on the job? Yet that’s what Harry had to do. Ever since being made a Site
Manager and working on numerous projects with Andrew, Harry had been noticing him. In fact,
long before Harry became a Site Manager he had noticed the way Andrew had worked and not
worked.

An exceptionally friendly and talkative young man, Andrew bothered Harry by his frequent
practice of stopping his whole gang to tell them a joke or a story. It didn’t bother Andrew that it
was during working hours or that anybody might be watching. He just seemed to enjoy telling
stories and being the centre of his gang’s attention. The trouble was that the rest of his gang
enjoyed him too. That’s why it was tough to clamp down – there was no chance of using group
pressure on him, for Harry had tried with a marked lack of success.

Soon after he took over the site, Harry was determined to straighten the gang out but he
waited a couple of months before moving in. As Andrew was such a friendly guy, Harry was sure
that he’d have no problem motivating him to get on the ball. The gang was on a group
incentive. It shouldn’t be hard, Harry thought at the time, to get them to see how much they
were losing by standing around and talking. He waited for an opportune time to launch his
campaign. One afternoon, Harry heard the whole gang burst out laughing while he was
standing nearby checking a job. As Harry walked over, Andrew was holding the floor, telling one
of his escapades. Andrew held the complete attention of the gang – all were enjoying his
performance. None seemed to mind that Harry had joined the group. Andrew acknowledged
Harry’s arrival with a smile and a nod but continued with his story. Harry interrupted by asking
if anything was wrong.

Andrew caught the inference of the question and, speaking for the gang, he assured Harry that
nothing was wrong and explained that he was telling them about his last date. Sensing that
Harry was annoyed, he also added that it could wait and that they would get busy. Andrew,
without question, was the informal leader of the gang over Harry. He had not the official
designation of Harry but the gang followed him just as surely as if he carried the Site Manager’s
title.

Andrew’s gang produced extremely well. When they worked – and that certainly was most of
the
time – they couldn’t be equalled in their output. Harry had no quarrel with their total
production;
they were comfortably ahead of the other gangs doing the same work. However, the frequent
nonscheduled breaks for story-telling did bother Harry. He reasoned that their production could
be even better if they would stick to business. Their non-productive time could be converted
into badly needed production output. Further, if they kept busy, they wouldn’t be setting a
poor example to the other gangs and the rest of the company. Andrew was the pacesetter for
the gang so Harry decided to start with him. The next morning, he asked him to stop by the site
office during the break period.

Harry started out by explaining that he wanted to talk about idle time. No sooner were the
words
out of his mouth than Andrew asked if their production record was slipping. Harry had to
acknowledge that it wasn’t but he said ‘think of the money you could be making if you’d cut out
the storytelling and keep that gang busy.’ ‘What good is money if you can’t enjoy it?’ Andrew
asked. ‘I’ve seen too many people, my old man included, sweat their whole life to rake in
money. When they finish, what have they got? A lot of miserable years and no way of knowing
how to enjoy what’s left. No sir. Harry, life is too short to spend every minute of it trying to
make more money. I want to enjoy myself – now, while I can. Tomorrow will take care of itself.
We’ll keep up our end of production but don’t ask me to go around with a long face trying to
squeeze out that last drop of blood. We’ve got a good production gang. We’ll see you get a fair
day’s output.’

‘I didn’t mean for you to drive them,’ apologised Harry. ‘I just meant that the time you spend
horsing around could be put to better use. You could be making more money without working
any harder – just steadier. You can still enjoy working but you’ll never get ahead if you don’t
take things more seriously. We’re all here to produce. It hurts like hell to have your gang sitting
around talking when they should be working.’

‘OK Harry,’ Andrew said. ‘We’ll quieten down. If we aren’t keeping up our end of production,
you
let us know.’

The conversation had not gone exactly the way Harry had wanted it to. He did not anticipate
that
Andrew would react the way he did to the chance of making more money. Things did improve
for a while but in a week or so the old pattern repeated. Harry decided that if he couldn’t get to
Andrew, he would work around him. One at a time he arranged to talk to Dave, Steven and
Tony. The fifth member of the gang, Ken, was relatively new and Harry didn’t think he should
involve him in the discussions.

The reactions of Dave, Steven and Tony were the same. They all felt that it would be very nice
to
be making more money. On the other hand, the incentive earnings were pretty good – better
than those of the other gangs. Besides, it was a lot of fun working with Andrew. Each said they
would try to buckle down and cut out the talking. However, the pattern of response repeated
itself – first some improvement would be made and then they gradually went back to their old
habits. Harry was convinced that it wasn’t malicious. They were doing a fine job on production.
It was frustrating, though, to keep knocking your head against a wall without getting any
results.
As much as anything, Harry was worried about the appearance of things. He often wondered
how
he would explain how the gang could sit around laughing and talking if the Company Director
should happen to visit the site while Andrew was spinning one of his yarns. Even if they were
producing well, it would be hard to justify a party on site.

Harry was puzzled by his failure to motivate any of the gang. Why didn’t they respond to the
carrot he held out for them? Isn’t everybody interested in more money? He remembered how
pleased his wife was with the pay increase he got when he was made Site Manager. Yet Andrew
showed no interest at all and the rest of them were interested but apparently not enough to
put any pressure on him to stop horsing around. If a Manager couldn’t motive his personnel
with money, what in heaven’s name was left?

Since it was obvious to Harry that he couldn’t solve this problem by holding out financial
incentives to Andrew and that his chance of forcing the issue with disciplinary action was not
good, he searched his brains for alternatives. Maybe he could use Andrew to spark higher
productivity with other gangs. There was no denying that Andrew was a leader and that when
he worked he took everyone with him. The trouble with that approach was the risk of having
him spread his practice of playing around. At least the way it was now, he infected only one
gang. Perhaps containment was a wiser policy. However, if Andrew could stimulate higher
production it would really help. ‘With Andrew’s seniority, he couldn’t be forced into a lesser
position,’ Harry thought. ‘You’d have to motivate him and I’m right back where I started. It’s a
puzzlement.’

Andrew had Harry baffled.

Questions
1. What might be some of the reasons to explain why Harry failed to motivate Andrew to buckle
down?

2. If the rest of the bricklaying gang really wanted more money, why didn’t they keep working
when Andrew stopped to tell them one of his stories?

3. Harry felt that if a manager couldn’t motivate personnel with money, there wasn’t much left.
How else could a manager motivate his personnel?

4. Do you consider that Harry really had a problem with Andrew’s gang? After all, productivity
was high. Was the problem really Harry’s, because of his own ‘insecurity’?

5. Should he have been prepared to defend his staff if Senior Management had commented on
their standing around talking?