There are many different methods of motivating employees to work hard within a company, as effective techniques vary among individuals. A key element in successful motivation is understanding one’s employees and what drives them. There are two distinct schools of thought when it comes to the workforce, theory X and theory Y. Theory X assumes that workers dislike their job, and therefore must be controlled and forced into doing their work or threatened with punishment in order to be efficient. The opposite of this, theory Y, assumes that employees like their work and are creative and wish to have more responsibility. The multinational tech company, Google, takes the view of theory Y.

Google is an organization that is known for their very distinct company culture of freedom, openness and innovation. Offices have cool lounges, with some even having rock climbing walls and bowling alleys, which all help to promote their culture. They strive to make sure their employees feel comfortable and powerful. Technology companies in general must be creative and efficient, as it is one of the fastest growing industries. Therefore, they need to have employees that share this trait and create a space that allows their workers to be innovative. Google took hold of this fact, and implemented their 80/20 rule. This rule encourages their engineers to take 20 percent of their work time to work on any company-related thing that interests them. This often includes developing new ideas for the company. The 80/20 rule is a great example of successful intrinsic motivation. Google employees have freedom and responsibility, and are able to work more efficiently and happily on something they’re passionate about. Gmail and Google News are just two examples of technologies forming in the 20 percent time.

Sources:

https://www.google.ca/about/company/facts/culture/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/jobs/21pre.html

Communication is extremely important in every organization. It is the base for many things that happen within the company, like feedback, monitoring behaviour, motivation, and making sure every aspect of the organization is cohesive. There are countless outlets and forms of communication, the most recent being social media. Businesses have taken advantage of the rise of social networks, and nearly every one of them has a Facebook page, Twitter account or Instagram account. It helps represent themselves among the generations of Millennials and Centennials, who spend so much of their time on social media. Not excluded in this, is the new president of the United States, Donald Trump.

Throughout his election, Trump has taken to Twitter to express himself, and this has now continued into his presidency. Donald Trump is not the first, or last, president with a Twitter account, but he has not been following the professional form that his posts so desperately need to possess. Electronic communication in itself can often lead to misunderstandings, but Trump takes this a step further as his posts are characteristically fuelled by emotion. It is completely unfiltered information, which is exceedingly irresponsible to come from a person in position of complete authority. By consistently posting like this on a social media platform, Trump has been misusing this communication process/channel. For a president, or any organization for that matter, a social media outlet should be a formal channel of communication. President Trump has been treating his Twitter page as an informal channel of communication, as his posts are spontaneous (or seemingly not thought through) and often responses to events or things said by another individual. Instantaneous social media posts that are driven by emotions, rather than rational thinking and professionalism, could have huge repercussions if the wrong message reached the wrong person. There has already been nation-wide outrage and astonishment at the kinds of things the new president will post. Communication is crucial no matter what industry you are in, and if not carefully thought-out, could have unintended consequences.

The workforce that we see today has completely transformed, and is very different than the traditional style that previous generations knew. Baby boomers were used to the 9 to 5 office job, which relatively lacks diversity and flexibility. With the introduction of the Internet and the globalization of markets, the workplace has developed into a more productive and flexible place, which promotes diversity. This concept of the digital workforce has been widely adopted by companies. As stated on Vision Tree Ventures, a Forbes article on telecommuting indicated that virtual employees now make up 30-45 percent of an organization’s workforce.

Canada celebrates a ‘mosaic’ culture, and opens its borders to immigrants and refugees. Of course, the addition of an entire sector of foreign workers affects the market. These are skilled workers coming in from another country, who, a lot of the time, are willing to work for less. It may be because the typical salaries they are used to are substantially lower than the standard in Canada’s workforce, or they are more desperate for work because of our high cost of living. This creates high competition for jobs, and allows for more diversity in the workplace as companies are incentivized to hire employees at lower salaries.

Another very common example of this in modern day businesses is outsourcing. Companies now outsource certain sections of their workforce internationally. They can outsource traditional, mundane jobs to other countries at a much lower cost. A huge example of this is call centers. Typically, employees in call centers operate phones and handle any complaints or questions in relation to the company. Having a call center in India, for example, allows a company to decrease costs because of lower compensation levels. They’re able to set lower pay-levels because of external equity. The competition of the organization’s pay relative to industry standard in that country would not be high. Living costs are much lower in the countries that call centers are located. Furthermore, as Shauna Geraghty mentions on her post on Talkdesk, the organization is more capable of having 24/7 services for customers because of the cheaper cost.

Sources:

https://www.talkdesk.com/blog/the-pros-and-cons-of-call-center-offshore-outsourcing-2/

http://blog.visiontreeventures.com/the-differences-between-a-digital-workforce-and-a-traditional-workforce