Exam 10: Motivating and Satisfying Employees and Teams

Tom Willis, owner-manager of J&P Manufacturing Company, has tried just about everything to motivate his employees. He has added new fringe benefits, including legal services; he has improved safety conditions; and he has increased employee pay by 7 percent across the board. None of these actions seem to have worked. Now Tom wonders what he should do next. Which of the following would you suggest?

For employee empowerment to work effectively, management must be involved and must perform all of the following functions except

A strong sense of accomplishment probably satisfies which level of need?

Garrett Enterprise Garrett Enterprise is a well-known company that has been around for many years. However, Mr. Smith, its CEO, has noticed recently that the company is not performing up to par. He has been watching the employees closely. Mr. Smith saw that his workers do only what is required and that no one seems to go above and beyond what is necessary. He thinks this is odd because Garrett Enterprise used to have dedicated employees who felt a real sense of ownership toward the company. Now it seems that the employees need to be watched all the time just to make sure they are doing the minimum required. The company has always tried to help its employees through various measures, but recently these measures have been unsuccessful. Mr. Smith also observed that the employees were not engaging with each other. They all seemed to be at ease with each other, but there was very little interaction. When Mr. Smith asked his top managers to study the situation more closely, they reported that the employees were neither dissatisfied nor motivated. Mr. Smith decided that things needed to change. He decided that the managers would reward only very good behaviors and punish anything that was considered bad behavior. While this may not be the best option, Mr. Smith believes that it may work for the near future. -Refer to Garrett Enterprise. What type of employees does Garrett Enterprise currently have?

At Chevrolet, teams of workers make their own job assignments, plan their own work, control their material and inventory needs, and select new team members. This is an example of job

Amy Crane is allowed to create her own work hours on a limited basis. She must be at work from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. every day, which represents ____ time, and she can choose which hours she will work between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. around the required hours, which represents ____ time. The total required time is eight hours per day.

The Hawthorne studies showed that ____ are equal to salary motivation.

Employee ownership is a situation in which

Theory Y is most suitable in a work situation in which workers are

Problem-solving teams are created to work together permanently.

The difference between part-time work and job sharing is that

In providing health insurance for its employees, Microsoft is probably satisfying which level of need?

Food, shelter, and clothing will probably satisfy a person's physiological needs.

Gina Robinson, Inc. (GRI) GRI management has decided to reinvent the culture of the organization. Previously, the company tried to make jobs more appealing by adding more responsibilities to each job description. However, this did not work. Next, the company decided to add flextime. It believed that this would create more dedicated employees. GRI then introduced even more work options for employees. For example, management decided to group all full-time employees into teams to allow employees with different backgrounds to learn from each other. Many different kinds of teams were allowed, as long as the group members did not interact via the Internet or any other electronic means. The managers reasoned that team members must work face to face to learn from and truly engage with each other. Once these teams were formed, GRI management noticed that the quality of employees' work was much improved. The managers also observed that people felt much more comfortable with and tolerant of each other. -Refer to Gina Robinson, Inc. Flextime is

The equity theory of motivation contends that people are motivated first to achieve and then by the desire to be rewarded in direct proportion to their contributions.

Tom works from 8a.m. to 12 noon, and Jerry works from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Both are working on the same tasks. This is an example of

At Jack's Automotive Repair, the mechanics rarely interacted directly with customers. Work orders were processed by the customer service department and passed on to the mechanics. After experiencing excessive customer complaints about the poor quality of work, Jack realized he was not motivating his mechanics to do quality work. To rectify the situation, Jack designated all of his employees as customer service representatives. The mechanics' roles were expanded to include direct customer contact. This motivational technique is called

At Redbone Co., employees are slowly evaluated and promoted, but they stay around until retirement. Groups make decisions and take responsibility for their decisions. Company control is informal, and everyone is concerned with the general well-being of the other employees. Employees do whatever the company needs at the time rather than following a specific job track. The environment at Redbone Co. most closely aligns with

If Dow Chemical were to emphasize achievement, recognition, responsibility, and advancement for its employees, it would be emphasizing

A manager who believes that employee motivation depends on how much we want something and on how likely we think we are to get it is using