Perfect Pizzeria

Case 6A –Perfect Pizzeria  (p. W-109) 

1. Consider the situation where the manager changed the time period required to receive free food and drink from 6 to 12 hours of work. Try to apply each of the motivational approaches to explain what happened, which approaches offers the most appropriate explanation? Why?

In the present instance, the manager took retaliatory measures. Previously, each employee was entitled to a free pizza, salad, and all the soft drinks s/he could drink for each 6 hours of work. The manager raised this threshold figure from 6 to 12 hours of work, but the employees had received these 6-hour benefits for a long time. Therefore, they simply took advantage of the situation whenever the manager or assistant manager wasn't in the building. Though the night manager theoretically had complete control of the operation in the evenings, s/he did not command the respect that the manager or assistant manager did. Maybe this was because the night managers were paid the same pay as regular employees, and maybe it was because they were the same age, or in some cases, even younger than the other employees. 

Thus, apathy grew within the pizzeria. There seemed to be a further separation between the manager and his workers, who started out as a closely knit group. The manager made no attempt to alleviate the problem, because he felt the problem would iron itself out. Either the employees that were dissatisfied would quit, or they would be content to put up with the new requirements. As it turned out, there was a rash of employee dismissals. The manager had no problem in filling the vacancies with new workers, but the loss of personnel was costly to the business. 

2. Repeat question 1 for the situation where the manager worked beside the employees for a time and then later returned to his office. The company lacks structure in terms of performance management system for the managers to work through. It has no tools to measure the performance of the...