Tag: employment

More Money makes you Bad at Work: The Myth of Performance-Related Pay.

Semi Daily Self Portrait by mike ambs, on FlickrMotivated by money? I confess I am. Well ok, not always: there are plenty of things that will trump a stack of greenbacks. However, few of us would object to a kindly benefactor plopping a million quid into our current account. Even for the least materially-minded, it would be difficult to ignore such an offer: an abundance of wealth brings great opportunities to do great things for a great many people. Just ask Bill Gates.

But would money make you work harder? Politicians have a thing for ‘performance-related pay’ – especially when it means cutting the salaries of civil servants. If you listen to the UK Chancellor and his sidekick (Education Secretary, Michael Gove) then getting paid more for doing a good job is “empowering”, “rewarding” and will “drive up quality” (read the words of what he is proposing for teachers). It’s a simple equation: more money = harder work. Who could argue with such a logical conclusion? Well, money may make you try harder, but what you do will be lousy. Read more

Could you survive a week without emails?

monday
‘You’ve got mail’ – *groan*
It’s 7.30am and the emails have already started. As I sit, savouring a few moments calm over a bowl of muesli before leaving for work, the phone has already started to chime. The ‘silent’ phone setting insists on buzzing on the table top – vibrating my coffee mug. I have resigned myself to the alternative ‘classic’ ding-dong. I guess my working day has begun.

Although I can rarely follow my employer’s ‘good ICT policy’ – fastidiously filing every email into a named subfolder (I never know where to put ‘Today’s Lunch Offer’), most days I click each email just long enough for it to be marked as ‘read’. Few of my colleagues manage this. I guess working part-time has some benefits.

Relentless work emails and calendar invitations that materialise from the electronic ether is the norm for many. This incessant distraction is a drain and – it doesn’t take a genius to figure out – probably drains productivity. The phone is dead: the majority of interactions are now done digitally. Could we sever our digital ties and survive at work without the emails? One group of workers did just that – for one week they went without emails. Researchers watched what they did and remotely monitored their stress levels. How did they cope? Surprisingly well… Read more

Ofsted Head says Teachers don’t know Stress. Perhaps Sir Michael Wilshaw should have done his homework.

Source: Ofsted

Teaching is an incredible privilege. It’s hard to underestimate the importance of inspiring and motivating young people – helping them achieve and grow. It was therefore more than a little surprising when Sir Michael Wilshaw, head of the UK schools inspectorate Ofsted, started a finger-wagging tirade accusing teachers of being shirking whiners.

“You youngsters don’t know you’ve been born!” Teachers today surely don’t know what stress is – real stress, he lambasted. “Why, when I was a teacher, I had to walk to work in the wind, rain and snow…” Ok, he didn’t say that, but it was close. Rather than face up to their responsibilities, he says that bad teachers blame ‘stress’ and blame everyone else for their problems.

As an ex-hospital doctor, I can say with some authority that teaching is far from stress-free. But personal experiences and emotions aside, has Sir Michael Wilshaw made some important – if uncomfortable – points? Let us take a, hopefully unbiased, look at his actual statements and whether or not they are justified… Read more