Is the corporate world cutting its own throat?

 
For some time, I have been complaining about corporate addiction to Hamburger Management: the myopic, short-term obsession with supposed increased efficiency and cutting costs as the sole route to higher performance.

Not only is such an approach uncivilized and, all too often, prone to leading managers into unethical actions, it is also very likely to produce more problems over the longer term that it solves.

That’s why it cheered me to read this article (Is corporate America cutting its own throat? in a recent edition of Management-issues.com.

Research at Florida State University suggests that efforts to increase efficiency by simplifying workers’ job responsibilities could lead to lower employee job satisfaction and productivity over time. What the researchers found was that simplifying tasks generally led to lower performance ratings and decreased worker satisfaction, while having more autonomy on the job is related to better performance, higher satisfaction and lower feelings of exhaustion.

The lead researcher made this statement:

The results of this research clearly show that organizations which focus on providing job flexibility, opportunities for social interaction and performance feedback can produce highly performing, highly satisfied workers who have low levels of stress, anxiety and burnout, and who are uninterested in searching for greener pastures. However, organizations that move toward the simplification and independent completion of work will find that workers will be dissatisfied with their work and will perform at a lower level over time, with higher levels of stress.

 
In our disjointed, Hamburger Management world, the costs of creating uncivilized working conditions and a demoralized workforce — especially if they lead to decreased productivity and increased turnover of key staff — may well offset the cost savings that executives are trying to achieve.

It’s another case of long-term pain arising from short-term gain.

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