By Sylvette Mascioni

The clip begins with the employee, Peter Gibbons, explaining how he arrives late to work, pretends to work, and only completes about 15 minutes of actual work in one week. He asserts that he isn’t lazy, but rather it is a problem of motivation. He doesn’t care because he has no motivational reason to care. He explains that he can work extremely hard and not see any extra 0’s in his paycheck. Peter is starting to sound like a lot people I know. The clip then ends with one of his bosses “hypothetically” offering him a stock option or equity share to increase his motivation at work.

As training professionals we can see how the Employer kind-of, sort-of manipulated his bosses into offering him an incentive to work harder. One learning theory, positive reinforcement, states that the employer gets a pleasurable outcome for increasing their behavior. In this case, if the employer were to come to work on time and stay productive all throughout his time there, he could potentially have options for stock and equity share. For Peter, this theory seemed to have worked.

The employee also mentions that he has 8 bosses, therefore when something occurs, he is approached 8 different times over the same situation. His motivation at work would increase if he was not hassled continuously.

This meeting with Peter is used as a needs assessment because his bosses are attempting to figure out the root of his lack of motivation. Needs assessments like interviews and group discussion are great for finding out if any changes or training needs to be done. Through a sit down with an employee, we can conclude that some changes on a managerial level should be made. If managers were separated by departments, there would be less complaints from employers as a result. This would then allow employers like those in the movie Office Space to be more motivated on the job without constantly being bothered and reminded of the same circumstance.

This short clip made me think about us millennials and how we need to be motivated through other means in order to put in our best effort at work. Working as a hostess in the past, I would have worked better if I received tips. Any person working in the restaurant industry understands the struggle.

Peter left the meeting with an advantage. We should all keep Peter’s tactics in mind the next time we feel stuck and unmotivated at work.

Let’s think;

What other type of needs assessment could be generated to gather further information on the company to find out if further training needs to be done?

The post What Office Space Teaches us About Needs Assessment and Motivation appeared first on Ellen Ensher.