Your naive assertions in the other thread, specifically, that:
- Team-building is a useful learning experience, instead of a costly game that employers use to humiliate and infantilize workers, while wasting their time.
- The only options available to workers are “bend over and don’t complain on an anonymous message board” or “quit”.
Led me to think that your OP here would be a similar combination straw-man argument/false dichotomy. However, you have a something of a point, although it is expressed in your characteristically stark, either/or fashion. To be clear, I am only talking about big company, Corporate America-type work environments here, and I’m not suggesting that nobody is motivated by job fulfillment.
The idea that every job should provide satisfaction, meaning, or fulfilment to every worker, in addition to traditional compensation looks like it is part of a system of cynical manipulation seemingly deliberately constructed by HR and management in order to reduce payroll and turnover. The asymmetrical power structure in traditional businesses, with a small number of people holding near absolute power over the majority, usually requires those in power to have means to coerce desired performance from their subordinates. However, the traditional forms coercion can be ineffective (reprimands), or of the sledgehammer as a flyswatter variety (termination). Middle of the road coercion, such as poor performance reviews that lead to low bonuses or being passed over for a promotion, can also be counterproductive, because it tends to increase worker dissatisfaction, leading to increased turnover. Rewards, such as bonuses and raises tend to be effective in the short-term, but can also also lead to dissatisfaction when next year’s bonus isn’t as big as was expected. They also cost money.
If you keep telling people that job fulfillment is typical for everybody, not just a lucky minority, they start to believe it, like any other propaganda. The beauty of the myth of is that is entirely internal. It can be decreed as natural law by the employer-“Everybody should get fulfillment from their work! If you don’t, there’s something wrong with you!”, and has to be uncritically accepted by the worker, who bears all responsibility for making it happen. Responsibility for morale problems that may be caused by poor management or external forces (like poor market conditions) can be shifted to workers; if someone is not happy most of the time it is their own fault for not finding fulfillment. It can also help suppress workers natural unwillingness to work extra hours or accept smaller or nonexistent raises and bonuses-“It’s not about the money! Aren’t we lucky to be able to spend another weekend in such a great office!”
By cultivating a relatively small number of ‘true believers’ who unquestioningly love everything about the company, the system can tap into the in-group/out-group mentality, in order to pressure non-confroming workers into ‘faking it’ in order to avoid social isolation. This can create a feedback loop, where damn near everybody has a phony smile plastered on their face, which is just fine as far as HR is concerned.
By promoting the idea of personal satisfaction as a sort of intangible compensation, a company gains a new set of tools for manipulating workers that is less overt, potentially more effective, and fairly cheap. From an employer’s perspective convincing people to convince themselves to settle for less is very nearly something for nothing.
Is it ethical to confuse people with regard to what they actually want in order to get them to believe that their desires align with what you are willing to give, which is nothing tangible? I think it’s fucking abhorrent, but it’s part of the deal if you want a salary. As others have said, the best way to motivate people is probably some variation of: give them useful work, respect, and a share of the rewards.