A publishing company has transitioned to having staff working from home, shrinking office space, and reducing costs. The business needs knowledge workers and support staff work to produce accurate and high-quality outputs and meet challenging deadlines. The jobs are not extreme, but are demanding and require effective teamwork.

The company decided to use the following online activities to foster and maintain the social interaction and well-being of their staff.

Regular activities

• A book club. Staff vote to select the monthly book, the company buys the selected book and distributes it to all members of the club.
• Yoga classes held online weekly.
• Series of mindfulness and mental resilience classes held during work hours.

Some examples of one-off social events (held online) include

• Beer tasting - all staff sent a crate of beer and then opinions exchanged on each of them.
• Chocolate making - a kit with chocolate shells, and materials for making fillings.
• At Christmas, staff were sent boxes of bottles for cocktail making - shaking their own versions of cocktails to drink.
• At Easter, staff were sent Easter egg moulds so that they could make their own eggs and then decorate them.

The company decided to close their office in London before the official government lockdown last year, to prevent their staff having to travel into work. The past year has been a very successful period for the company, so there are funds to continue high levels of pay. The company does not make use of performance-based financial incentives.

Activity: Preparation for Live Session

Reflecting on the case

• Why might staff find this approach motivating?

Reflecting on your personal motivation

• Which of these activities would motivate you? Why?

Reflecting on challenges and opportunities

• What do you think the problems with this approach are?
• Could or should the firm be doing anything else to motivate its workers?

Make a two- to three-slide presentation (using eg, Google Slides) presenting recommendations for the company on what, if anything, they should

• Stop doing (red)
• Continue doing (amber)
• Start going (green)

You should base your answer on relevant theories, including agency theory - any others?