can you motivate

8/12/2019 Can You Motivate

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ECONOMIC VERSUS NONECONOMIC OPTIONS

C a n Yo u M o tiv a te Yo u r W o rk e rs ?A well-designed gainsharing plan will produce improvements in

productivity and costs-of-quality of 17 percent to 22 percent annually.B y W o o d n i f f I m b e r m a n P r e s i d e n t

Imberman and DeForest, Inc

Six years ago . Official Board Mar-kets published our survey ( AreLow Profits Boxing You In? )of 427 Midwestern manufactur-ers (including 39 comigated box

makers) in tlic five Great Lakes states of Illi-

nois., Oh io, M ichigan, Indiana, and W iscon-sin. The report re\iewed six key reasons whysome box makers were more profitable tlianothers and what the l ss profitable ones coulddo to impro\'e dieir bottom lines.

On e ofdi e key reasons tor low profitabilityamong the 39 box makers was their inabilityto motivate their employees effectively.

We revisited those 427 manufacturers recently, asking

SURVEY OF 427 MIDWESTERN COMPANIESWHAT TXEY ARE DOING TO MOTIVATE THEIR EMPLOYEES;

PERCEIVED EFFECTTVENESS

PERCENT OF COMPANIES USING THISMETHODPERCENT OF COMPANIES P6RCE[ViNG IT3 EFFECTIVE

HHt

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preciseiy what efforts they were making to motivate temploy ees, which ones they found effective, and which owere not (see accompanying table). The botto m line: Wmany independent box making executives unders tand importance of motivating tlieir employees, others admitefforts are not particularly effective. The result, tliey sayo t n high turno ver, less than sterling productivity, and ocasional labor u nrest.

Why M o t iv a t e W o r k e r s ?

Most ot the executives we interviewed wanted better wto m otivate their workers. When I asked, M otivate themwhat?, I often received a vague answer: to work harde r. Speople costs are about 65 percent of the typical box makoperatio n, anytliing tliat can be done to get that 65 percto use their brains for more productivi ty is critical for tconve rter's success. But how?

Employee motivation techniques can be divided into trough categories: noneconomic and econom ic. Behavscientists and personnel specialists have long argued awhich is more effective, often without asking workers they emselve s felt. He dg ing their bets, mos t executive ntry both categories.

N o n e c o n o m ic M o t iv a t o r s

Noneconom ic techniques for motivating workers incpractices like service award lunches, re cognitio n symbo shirts, hats with company logos), preferred parking pgood at tendance awards, and catalog gift items for worachieving tliis milestone or that.

Whi le noneconomic methods do build team spirit


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designed to affeet. Today, astute box making executives tellme that pay-for-perform a nee program s with shor t term re-ward ho rizon s, like gainsha ring, are the mo st effcetive one s.Tod ay's gainsharing plaiis reward gro up effort and c oope rationwith m anage men t to achieve company goals of higher peifor-mance, t)'pically defined as quality, productivity, and safety,all of which are under employee control. Their improved

performance is quantified and given a dollar value, which isshared (hence the n ame) 5 0 /5 0 w ith staffers. T hu s, for everydollar paid out in employee bonu ses, the company saves a likeamo unt throu gh higher productivity (mo re sq ft of boxes, ad-justed for size and type, printed per hour w orked mean lowerper unit costs), better qualit\' (less waste at the B HS com igato rmean s lower m aterial costs), and b etter safc'ty (lower w orke r'scomp premiums).

The bonuses earned by employees have to be earned andre-earned each gainsharing period, t\'pically monthly. Theirshort-term nature effectively ends any employee tho ug ht that

the bonuses are entitlements.Sadly, many m anage rs thin k w orkers will rise like cats to

catnip in an effort to earn a gainshare bo nu s. Since the litera-ture on gainsharing is widespread, many of these do-it-your-selfers try designing a plan themselves. Although there is alsowidespread literature on heart bypass surgery, few try tliat onthemselves, book in one hand and scalpel in the othe r.

A well-designed gainsharing plan will produce improve-me nts in productivity and costs-of-qualit>' of 17 percen t to 22percent annually. Good ones incorporate a combination ofnoneconomic and economic motivational tools. Employeesrespond to gainsharing's economic motivation - the oppor-tunity fbr extra earnings. Just as important, they also respondpositively to c om mu nication s: when they realize they are be inglistened t o, when their ideas arc co-o pted , and when they aretold how their ideas are making an impo rtant contribu tion totheir employer.

Tod ay, packaging im ports are growing fast. Surviving do-mestic box m akers now struggle w ith excess capacity, fightingamo ngst themselves for the market that still exists - niches em-phasizing noncommodity, short-run, quick nirn-.iround jobs.Only those box makers working to motivate their employeesto work smarter will succeed.OBM

Imberman president of Imberman and DeForest Inc.management consultants Evanston I I I . has written numerousarticles in O BM o n employee productivity supen isory training}and gainsharing. F o r his previous OBM articles or further in-formation contact him at IMBandD EF@ aol.com.

P CK GE PRINTER S DELIGHT

r u p a W ill H a v e P le n ty t o O ffe rhi the Rill-up to drupa 20 08 , die world's printing and finisliiiigexperts agree that there are two major trends at workhighlyfinished packaging materials and p ackaging as well as securityprinting. The print media fair (May 29 to June 11) promisesto offer ev erything packaging design ers' and p rinting service

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out the stops. Gold and silver dominate, but other meefiects also catch the eye. Varnish , UV va rnish, matt and varnish, foil s tam ping , cold foil, rapid-drying inksall ofare finishing effects intended to en tice custom ers into pu ring at the p oint of sale.

Sheetfed offset packaging printing is regarded as the highly industrialized of the individual segments. The of printable substrates is broad and covers corrugated and b oxbo ard in every imaginable thickness. With procespeeds of up to 18,00 0 sheets per hour, the setup m easurabou t to u nderg o furdier au toma tion, resulting m incrcost effectiveness.

Among the h ighly ac t ive packaging pr in ters andsigners, security experts are some of the hardest worA search for the keyword R FI D alone turn s up patconferences, products, and articles. Many printing seproviders have been relatively quick to establish theircompanies that focus exclusively on the high tech fie

security. Even within this narrow field, there are a hodiverse sub-sectors: RFID with special machinery' forducing the substrates and transponder labels, not to tion ho logra ms o f every variety, diffraction foils, lentieffects, and other technologies.

In recent years, the printing and packaging industrbeen swept up in the euplioria surrounding all things RNow, the mood may be gradually becoming more subThe first setbacks occurred in the U.S. and Germany wdata protection officers complained of customers being tinto open books. A second criticism is undoubtedly found in the fact that cost-effective labels are neither wreach nor m arket-ready. So experts have a far more s obelook on this debate. The move to RFID labels could ebein g used exclusively in manu facturers ' and traders' lochains.

Data handling is pla\ang an increasingly imp ortant rothe form of labels and barcodes, the printing and packindustry are provided with large quantities of customerThis data and ultimately the print data are being put tin a variety of ways, ranging fi-om security' codes to whatcould call gimmicks.

As a general rule, security p rinting aims to provide p

tion against counterfeiting. The damage to goods (tliat smeasures on packaging are intended to prevent) runbillions of dollars. Help is at hand in the form of a widette of options extending from holograms to security tFro m am on g this wealth of possibilities, color ccxies andcombinations stand out, thanks to the millions of povariations.

Here in the U.S., expensive branded goods are advein dedicated com bined marketing campaigns. To this enpackaging finisher creates die printed product. A transpfilm can be peeled off the product and positioned inof specific area of the PC screen to try and solve an opuz zle. W ha t's particularly attractive is that die b rand ed manufacturer, with the help of the packaging printer an

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can you motivate

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