Question

Employee Motivation

This case concerns a goal-based theft-control program that Dr. Lynn Summers helped to design. Dr. Summers was asked by a national fast-food chain to devise a program to control theft in its restaurants. In the restaurant industry, internal theft is a much larger problem than theft due to robbery. This chain wanted to do something about employees who were either stealing food for themselves or giving food to friends for free. Dr. Summers investigated the situation and helped a team of employees representing different restaurants come up with six different interventions. Of interest here is a goal-setting procedure, which turned out to be the most effective.

        

The goal-setting procedure was quite simple. In each restaurant, the manger assigned a small group of employees responsibility for control of the theft of a particular item, such as chicken breasts that were “missing” each day. It was also assigned specific goal for reducing the number.

The company found that the goal-setting program was quite effective in that thefts were reduced. What no one is certain about is why it worked. The employees were not instructed in how they should go about reducing the theft – they were given only a goal. It is possible that members of the group had been stealing, and they merely stopped. It is also possible that the group pressure on them to stop. At the very least, the program directed employee attention to the problem, and this is one of the ways goal setting enhances performance. No matter why it worked, this case illustrates that goal setting can be an effective means of changing behavior. Often managers need only set a goal and then allow their subordinates the latitude to figure out how to achieve it.

Discussion Questions

1. What factors cause employees to steal?
2. Why did the goal-setting program reduce stealing?

Answer 1

1. Employee theft involves the use or misuse of the property or assets and products at the workplace without seeking permission from the employer.

There are a number of factors that can explain why employees engage in stealing. Some of the important ones are as follows: -

A. Motivation: A gamut of motives may be responsible such as drug or alcohol addiction, gambling among others. In most cases, employees engage in stealing to compensate for their poor financial condition. In addition, stealing can also be attributed to employees’ perceptions of being under-appreciated or not paid their due amount relative to the work they do.

B. Easy access or availability of opportunity: In organizations with lax security measures or policies in place, employees may take advantage of it, thinking that they would be less likely to get punished. Many times, employees feel that they would be able to deceit their employer and would not get caught.

C. Lack control: Many people pathologically suffer from a disorder called kleptomania, due to which they are not able to control their urge for stealing. As a result, employees suffering from this disorder are more likely to take part in stealing if they do not receive adequate counseling and treatment.

Thus, these factors and a host of others are likely to cause employees to engage in stealing.

2. A goal-setting program is applied to enable individuals to achieve their goals timely and effectively. As reported in the passage, this program was found to be effective in reducing stealing behavior among employees. This can be attributed to a number of factors: -

(i) Sense of responsibility: Since the manager assigned the responsibility to a few employees to make sure that stealing does not take place, it instilled a sense of responsibility into them. It is likely that some of the group members had engaged in stealing before but would not do so now since that would create cognitive dissonance.

(ii) The specificity of the goal: Goal specificity is an integral part of goal achievement. The more specific a goal is, the more likely it is that an individual would remain focused and clear about what he or she wants to attain and work in that direction. For example, in the case of the above scenario, the employees were asked to monitor the theft of a specific item, like chicken breasts that were found to be missing every day.

(iii) Group pressure: Since those who were chosen to monitor stealing were among the employees themselves, it is probable that others too felt the group pressure to comply and maintain cohesion and therefore not engage in stealing.

(iv) Awareness of the issue: Lastly, by shifting the attention of the employees to the problem of stealing and by devising a mechanism to handle it, the on-the-job performance of many employees increased, thereby leading to reduced stealing.

Hence, due to these factors, the goal-setting program was instrumental in reducing the rate of stealing among the employees.