Re: Individual responsibility in a system

[TQNELSON@aol.com]

Thanks to Ed Baker for "regrounding" the concept of individual responsibility 
back to basics. It is for those very reasons that I (just like WED, and as he 
taught me) do not believe in the nonsense of grades in school (those who wish 
can check out my rationale in my paper in the DEN archives at 
http://deming.ces.clemson.edu/pub/den/dnelson01.htm  ).

Along those same lines, the following story appeared in this morning's (May 
14th) Sacramento Bee newspaper:

"Merit pay questioned

Companies call it "performance-based pay." Those who answer more calls, enter 
more data or manufacture more pieces get paid more. It seems an easy way to 
reward the producers and punish the slackers and increase productivity.
But a University of Illinois professor claims that it may have the opposite 
effect.

In a study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, labor 
and industrial relations professor Michelle Kaminski looked at 86 
manufacturing companies in the Midwest.

She found that performance-based pay was associated with higher injury rates 
and lower productivity.

The opposite was true with in-house training programs. Organizations with 
training courses showed increases in productivity and lower injury rates.

Of the companies in the study, about half had employee teams that were 
responsible for things such as job rotation, training and safety awareness. 
Companies with these teams had lower injury rates but didn't show increased 
productivity.

"The combined results call into question the current popularity of 
performance-based pay," Kaminski said. "Performance-based pay creates worse 
conditions for workers on one measure, and it doesn't really appear to 
benefit stockholders."  "

Maybe there is hope that some are learning.

Del Nelson
American River College

When "We, the people..."
Are replaced by dollar$, profit$, and greed,
It is time to start over.
tqnelson@aol.com