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My work involves …

1. Complete this table with the related forms.

contribute create demand excite fascinate motivate originate recognize repeat reward satisfy

2.Complete the sentences with expressions from vocabulary.

1 Work that is interesting and exciting is ……… and ……… . 2 If you spend time with customers, you have ……… .

3 If you have a good working relationship with your colleagues, you ……… well with them.

4 If you do the actual work of the organization rather than being a manager, you are ………-…… .

5 If you want to say that work is not repetitive, you can say, ‘………………’.

6 ……… and ……… are when you have new and effective ideas that people have not had before.

3.The aircraft engineer talks about his work. Complete his statements with necessary expressions.

3 6

7I get frustrated when you have to get permission to spend anything over Ј50. I don’t like ___ and ___ ___.

4.a) Five people talk about their jobs. Match the jobs (1-5) to the people (a-e) and put the words in brackets into the correct forms.

a Obviously, my work involves ……… (travel) a lot. It can be quite physically

……… (tire), I enjoy ……… (deal) with customers, except when they become violent. Luckily this doesn’t happen often.

b I like ……… (work) with figures, but my job is much less ……… (bore) and routine than people think. The work ……… (involve) a lot of human contact and teamwork, working with other managers.

c Of course, it involves getting up quite easily in the morning. But I like ………

(be) out in the open air. And I get a lot of exercise!

d You’ve got to think in a very logical way. The work can be mentally ………

(tire), but it’s very satisfying to write a program that works.

e I love my job. It’s very ……… (stimulate) and not at all ……… (repeat): no two days are the same. It’s good to see the children learn and develop.

b) Choose two jobs you like. Using the words from the vocabulary, describe these jobs. Your partners will guess the job.

VOCABULARY 2

1. Match the items which are similar in meaning.

2. Complete each sentence with the correct form of the word in bold. Sometimes you will need to use a negative form using a prefix ( un-, dis-, de-).

1 satisfy

a)Women are more ……… with their jobs than men in many countries.

b)Low pay and poor working conditions create …….. workers.

c)Small European countries are at the top of job ………… league tables.

2 motivate

a)What are the strongest ……. factors in people's lives?

b)Workers become ……….. if they work long hours for low pay.

c)What was your ………… for becoming a salesperson?

3 fulfil

a)Becoming Department Head was the ………… of a lifelong ambition.

b)He ………. his role as manager very effectively.

c)I feel ……….. in my job because I am not given enough responsibility.

4 inspire

a)Jack Welch was an ……….. business leader who motivated employees.

b)He has been an ………… to the new members of staff.

c)After an …………launch, the new model quickly failed.

5 frustrate

a)You could see the ……….. building up in the workforce.

b)I find talking to him …………. because he never listens to anything I say.

c)I felt so …………… with their attitude that I decided to resign.

3. Use the words from the box to complete the paragraph.

A company’s marketing department should decide what type of person will buy their product and have a 1 _____ _____ or description of the consumer in mind. They can design their advertisements. A good 2 ______ should describe the 3

_____ or characteristics of the product as well as the 4 ______ or advantages of buying the product.

The price of a product depends on various factors. Production costs are affected by the availability of 5 ______, or workers and the availability of 6 ______, or the things needed to make the goods. How much the company has to pay the workers, or 7 ______, is another factor, and also the amount the government charges the company in 8 _____.

The people who work for a company, or the company’s labour force are the company’s most important asset. Many different things motivate people to work, such as 9 ______, or money, 10 ______ or the position they hold in the company and society and the opportunity for 11 _____ _____ and to meet other people. Different people like different things, and the way managers treat employees, i.e. their 12 ______ can be very important.

4.Using different sources, find information about basic theories of motivation. Prepare the summary of their main ideas.

5.a) Complete the passage about job satisfaction with five appropriate words from the box.

Factors contributing to job satisfaction

Frederick Irving Herzberg (1923 - 2000) was a management professor at the University of Utah known internationally for his work on helping companies understand how to motivate workers and increase productivity. He is known for his 'Motivation-Hygiene Theory. According to Herzberg, five factors increase job satisfaction and staff motivation to perform:

1 Achievement

i.e., a sense of ................1 or successful closure of a task or activity

2 Recognition

i.e., the ……… 2 of an individual's or group's efforts, or contributions

3 Challenging work

For work to be................3, there must be tasks that are challenging or

motivating. Just as each individual prefers some tasks to others, each finds some tasks more challenging than others.

4 Responsibility

When staff feel responsible and .........…4 for their own work, and when

they are somehow involved in the decision-making process, their job satisfaction increases.

5 Growth and development

Everyone needs to continue to grow and develop personally and professionally on the job. When there are …….. 5 opportunities for growth and development, motivation decreases. Staff may commit energy to other aspects of their personal lives, seek other employment, or burn out.

b) Managers can enhance the five factors described in exercise A in a number of ways. Match each statement below, a) - h), with one of the factors from exercise a.

e)give a genuinely positive performance evaluation

f)gradually increase staff autonomy and decision making as they gain expertise

g) highlight staff efforts and contributions in meetings

h)promote staff or encourage them to apply for promotions in appreciation of their work

READING 2

1. Read the article and formulate its main idea in 2-3 sentences.

Perks that work

By Robert Burke

Keeping people happy is an increasingly tough trick. With unemployment at record lows, ‘companies are trying just about anything1 to retain employees, says Jay Doherty of the New York-based human-resources consulting firm William M. Mercer Inc. Not only are employees being pampered, they’re getting more money, better benefits and help with personal problems such as child care and financial planning. Bosses once shunned such intervention. Retention ‘is no longer a human resource issue, it’s a business issue’ Doherty says.

Because technology companies face the tightest labor markets, they have been the most aggressive in devising ways to keep workers. Herndon-based Net2000 Communications, for example, puts top performers behind the wheel of luxury cars like a BMW323i or Z3. Micro Strategy, a Vienna-based data miner, goes a step further and has hosted all of its employees on Caribbean cruises.

Such perks are great for the employee, but do they make sense for the company? Maybe. Doherty says all companies-including technology firms –‘have to be careful they don’t create a business model that’s not profitable.’ Don’t throw money at workers who want to leave because pay raises don’t always work.

Perks and benefits can be effective, but they have to be custom-fit to the company and the business sector. Don’t add new perks just because they seem like hot trends, he says. ‘Too often there’s desperation sometimes to just try anything, and

it’s very expensive MicroStrategy, which reported lower earnings earlier this year, has been rethinking its cruises, for example.’

Yet companies still face labor crunches that can really hurt. How do you keep workers? Start by making them feel they’re part of a special place with a unique culture. 'We want to hire people that are totally aligned with our values,’ says Tim Huval, general manager for South Dakota-based Gateway’s 2,200employee call center and manufacturing facility in Hampton. ‘Honesty, efficiency, aggressiveness, respect, teamwork, caring, common sense and fun. Those are values that we live by’. Richmond-based Xperts also lives by the value system. Founder and CEO William Tyler pushes pairing quality of life with a sense of social responsibility.

Workers can designate which non-profit groups Xperts contributes to, for example. A strong culture makes it hard for people to leave, Tyler says. ‘They don’t have an urge to leave because they’ve found a home. They’re happy.’

Notice this corporate culture stuff doesn’t say much about shareholders or profit. It’s a decidedly employee-centric approach. ‘If you ask any of them, they’re all going to say, ‘Pay me more money.’ But that’s not the truth,’ Tyler says. ‘What people are looking for is, ‘A place that’s looking out for me.’’

What that means is helping employees cope with problems they face outside the office. ‘That is where companies can build employee loyalty,’ says Barbara Bailey of William M. Mercer’s Richmond office. One popular tool is revamping leave policies to create ‘flexible leave banks’ that put all employee leave into a single category. Employees take time off when they need it and don’t have to call it a sick day or vacation. ‘Work-life issues are huge,’ Bailey says. ‘You make them feel as though they’re not in interested in looking elsewhere, because they’re very happy with their life.’

From Virginia Business Online

2.Look through the article again. In which lines are these ideas mentioned?

1 money is a less important motivator than a caring company

2 giving employees more choice how they organise their time away from work 3 the disadvantages of offering perks

4 creating an atmosphere and culture which employees feel they belong to 5 examples of up-market perks offered by technology companies

6 the increased benefits being offered to employees

3.Look in the article to complete these word partnerships.

4. Complete these sentences with word partnerships from Exercise 3.

1 He has resigned after having a lot of..........................................this year.

make this decision.

5. Discuss these statements.

1 Companies should be fully involved in the lives of their employees. 2 ‘Sick days’ are a perk.

3 A pay rise is better than a job in a caring company.

READING 3

1.a) Look at the headline of the article. What do you think it could be about?

b)work in a group and think about unusual motivators that a company could use.

c)read the text and compare your motivators with those which are used by SOL company.

Dirty business, bright ideas

Walk into SOL City, headquarters of one of northern Europe’s most admired companies, and it feels like you’ve entered a business playground. Located in renovated film studio in the heart of Helsinki, the office explodes with colour, creativity and chaos. The walls are bright red, white and yellow. Smart in yellow uniforms, staff hurry about in $60 million-a-year cleaning company carrying laptops and the latest Nokia mobile phones, as well as heavy-duty vacuum cleaners. Laptops and cell-phones are standard equipment for all supervisors at SOL, freeing them to work where they want, how they want. Inside the offices there’s almost no room for paper. So the company stores all critical budget documents and performance reports on its Intranet.

Few people dream about becoming a cleaner. But that doesn’t mean cleaners can’t find satisfaction in their work. Liisa Joronen developed SOL Cleaning Service 11 years ago, out of a 150-year-old industrial empire owned by her family. Slim, charismatic brunette of 50, back from a 90-mile keep-fit cross-country ski run in Lapland, says that she has thrown out traditional management styles and

hierarchies in favour of people motivation and the strict auditing of targets. She believes that fun is the key to satisfaction. She has brought fun to the workplace in a nation noted for its engineering innovation, but also for its people’s shyness and introversion. This most extrovert of Scandinavian business leaders sometimes dresses as a sunflower and sings at sales meetings if it will help. The company’s name is from the Spanish for sun, and its sun logo has a curved line turning it into a smile. This yellow happy face is on everything from her blazer to the company’s budget reports.

Individual freedom is another point that brings satisfaction to employees. Freedom means abolishing all the rules and regulations of conventional corporate life. To help staff towards independence of mind, Liisa has abolished territorial space, such as individual offices and desks, and organized a communal area similar to a social club. It has a colourful playground, with trees, caged birds and small animals, a nursery, a billiard table, sofas and modern art kitchen corners. Staff sit anywhere. There is not a secretary in sight. The boss makes the tea if everyone is on the phone to the field teams. The company has eliminated all perks and status symbols.

This is a company in which people work when they like. Headquarters can be empty in the day and busy in the evenings and weekends. One headquarters worker, keen to go to midweek tango classes, was switching tasks with a colleague. The person supervising the cleaning of Helsinki’s metro was working from home. ‘People’s creativeness is restricted by routine and traditional office hours. As work becomes more competitive, so we need more flexible, creative and independent people,’ Ms Joronen says. Liisa tells 3,500 staff at 25 branches to kill routine before it kills you. At SOL Days, Japanese-style motivation sessions, she has the whole hall dancing, and urges staff: The better you think you are, the better you will become.

Lots of companies talk about decentralizing responsibility and authority. At SOL it’s a way of life. The real power players of the company are its 135 supervisors, each of whom leads a team of up to 50 cleaners. These supervisors work with their teams to create their own budgets, do their own hiring and negotiate their own deals with customers.

Liisa Joronen believes in autonomy, but she’s also keen on accountability. SOL is fanatical about measuring performance. It does so frequently and visibly, and focuses on customer satisfaction. Every time SOL lands a contract, for example, the salesperson works at the new customer’s site alongside the team that will do the cleaning in the future. Together they establish performance benchmarks. ‘The more we free our people from rules,’ Joronen says, ‘the more we need good measurements.’

Lifelong learning is among the key points that the company pays attention to. SOL’s training programme consists of seven modules, each of which lasts four months and ends with a rigorous exam. Of course, there are a limited number of ways to polish a table or shampoo a carpet. That’s why SOL employees also study time management, budgeting and people skills.

Half the country sees Liisa as a revolutionary boss, and several television programmes have been devoted to her. The other half thinks she is crazy.

2. Work in two groups. Group A completes the information file on Liisa Joronen. Group B completes the information file on her company, SOL. When you have finished, check each other’s files.

3.Which of these statements are true? Correct the false ones.

1.Everyone has their own office.

2.Liisa Joronen believes cleaners can feel good about their job.

3.At the end of the training course there is an exam.

4.The training course takes 28 month to complete.

5.At SOL giving responsibility to employees is important.

6.SOL thinks measuring performance restricts freedom.

7.Every month Liisa Joronen measures each team’s performance.

8.All the information is stored in filing cabinets.

4. Read these extracts from the article. Which word is similar in meaning to the underlined word in each extract?

1 Smart in yellow uniforms, staff rush about in Finland’s $60 million-a-year SOL cleaning company.

a) intelligent b) colourful c) well-dressed

2 SOL’s owner, Liisa Joronen, a slim, charismatic brunette of 50… a) powerful b) charming c) inspiring

3 This most extrovert of Scandinavian business leaders sometimes dresses as a sunflower…

a) lively b) quiet c) creative

4 People’s creativeness is restricted by routine and traditional office hours. a) developed b) destroyed c) limited

5 Liisa has abolished territorial space, such as individual offices and desks. a) increased b)stopped c) reduced

6 One headquarters worker, keen to go to midweek tango classes, was switching tasks with a colleague.

a) changing b) planning c) sharing

5. Discuss these questions.

1.Would you like to work in a company like SOL?

2.Which of Liisa Joronen’s ideas would you like to introduce into your own company or organization? Which would you not like to introduce? Why?

Project work: Choose any company you are interested in. Collect information about their motivation scheme and present it to the class.

WRITING

Use information from your project work and imagine that you and other managers feel that your company’s system of perks needs improving, or employee retention might become a critical issue. One of the directors has asked you to put forward your ideas in writing. Write an informal proposal (in 200-250 words) for the director.

Your proposal should:

∙describe what are, in your views, the shortcomings of the present system of perks

∙suggest a number of alternatives

∙explain what kind of perks you think would work best, and why.

Team building

1.Think of at least two advantages and disadvantages of working in a team.

2.How well could you work in a team? For each category in the quiz below, tick the three statements that most apply to you. Comment on the results.