Motivating Employees - Good or Bad?

Employees are the lifeblood of any business and loyal, hardworking employees contribute to the overall growth, development and profitability of a company's bottom line but under-performing, non-motivated and downright lazy employees are costly and their lackadaisical attitude toward work will not only have a negative impact on employee morale but also on our patrons, especially in the hospitality industry where we rely on word-of-mouth referrals and repeat customers for our financial success. Unfortunately you cannot teach someone to be enthusiastic about or have passion for their job, and simply because an employee continues to show up for work and collect a paycheck does not mean he or she actually likes their job or cares about the company.

In spite of the fact that verbal appreciation helps an employee's self-esteem; money talks and money, or things that translate into money, has always been a great motivator. Offering cash incentives such as a salary increase, a bonus or monetary accolades will help minimize inertia and maximize productivity. Just like Pavlov's dog, we have been conditioned from early childhood that good behavior equal rewards; and it is perfectly fine to reward an employee for doing their job and doing it well...on occasion but rewarding an employee for doing a good job when this is something they should be doing in the first place is sending the wrong message.

For example, a friend and I were having dinner in a local restaurant and our server asked if we would like to order a "steak and a shirt?" She said it was the latest contest promotion that the management invented to motivate the servers. For every steak and T-shirt sold, each server would receive five dollars of funny money to use to upgrade an employee meal, put toward a meal in the restaurant for their family or friends, or for a purchase in the restaurant's retail store. The server told us that "management constantly has to come up with contests to keep us upbeat and excited about our jobs". She further explained that the servers also get rewarded if they show up on time, if they smile and are friendly to their tables, if they have a good attendance record, if they get compliments from their guests and if they are willing to pick up extra shifts. The reward is cold hard cash, gift cards, show tickets or spa certificates. When I asked, "Isn't showing up to work on time, being pleasant to the customers and having the willingness to go that extra mile part of your job description and aren't the rewards being able to keep your job and earning a paycheck"? From her reaction, it was clear she did not agree. The incentives that this restaurant offers their employees, albeit generous, sound more like bribes, and it was obvious after listening to this server's diatribe that if these incentives were not in place, none of the servers would take pride in themselves or care enough about the company to do a good job.

When friends and I went to an upscale restaurant for a birthday celebration, while we were waiting for our server, a couple of us exchanged a few words in Italian. At the end of the meal, we noticed that there was an automatic gratuity of 20% applied to our check. Being in the business and having started out as servers ourselves, we are heavy tippers but we questioned the gratuity. No mention of an automatic gratuity was told to us by our server and the menu indicated that a gratuity would be added on parties of seven or more; we were a group of six. Our server said that when he heard us speaking a "foreign language", he "assumed we were foreigners and didn't think we would know to leave a tip since restaurants in Europe automatically add gratuity to the checks". In other words, he implied that he added a 20% gratuity as a "favor" to us and admitted that his management team allows this so "the servers don't get stiffed" because if servers think they might not get a tip, they won't do a good job. This employee, and apparently the management staff, saw this as some sort of motivation; we saw it as discrimination. Had he been a friendly server instead of just an order taker, and bothered to ask us where we were from, he would have found out we were locals but then we wouldn't have found out about their dirty little secret!!

Another restaurant featured margaritas as their drink of the month. If the server was able to talk their customers into upgrading to Patrone Tequila, at least one hundred times during that month, they would receive a one-hundred dollar bill otherwise they had no real incentive to upsell the house brand of Tequila even though it would give them a higher guest check average and also increase the restaurant's bottom line.

It is clear from these types of employees that having a job, being able to keep that job and getting a paycheck are not enough. The "what's in it for me attitude", the expectation of extra compensation and this strong sense of entitlement is shameful. I understand that we all get bored, complacent and burned out from time to time, and a little motivation and recognition can go a long way in boosting one's spirit and company morale but going to such extremes as giving out cash rewards for showing up to work on time and being pleasant to the customers (even though that is part of their job), adding automatic gratuities to "foreign" tables and feeling that you continuously have to reward your employees to get them to take ownership and responsibility is sad, wrong and outrageous. When I started in the hospitality industry as a server, our gratuities were solely performance-based. If tips are automatic, where are the incentive and the challenge in doing a good job? Incentives should reward the behavior of an employee who is already performing well, not used to motivate bad employees in order to get them to do a good job. In this economic down time, if your employees don't like their job, if they don't have a strong work ethic and aren't working to the best of their ability, there are several people willing to take their place. Recognition and motivation is good but too much of a good thing can be bad!