Workers Share In Profits Of Their Firms example essay topic

1,558 words
Enjoyment of work and creativity is more important to most people than higher pay. Employers cant pay to get more creativity because it is not just about the money. Something meaningful and challenging is generally more important for new workers coming into the workforce. No more is it the hope of reaching fame or making money that drives the workforce. It's the opportunity to do the work that is enjoyed. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist at the University of Chicago and author of Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life, has found through his research that for some people, paying them to do things they enjoy actually reduces their interest in doing those things.

Another theory is that if you take your hobby and turn it into a career you wont enjoy it as much. Capitalism plays a key factor in creativity because the workforce needs to be stimulated in order to produce good results. "Cracking the whip" on an assembly line stifles creativity in the workplace and most workplaces are not assembly lines like they were a while back. Leaders that work under an authoritarian model stifle creativity and innovation. This will ultimately lead to low productivity and low turnover within the workforce.

The "good life" just doesn't happen anymore. There aren't millions of people working in assembly lines and in automobile manufacturing plants... people are creating their happiness and most of it is a direct result on how they spend their time while they are punched into a clock. When what we do at work is meaningful people don't get bored or distracted, they get so involved they forget to eat. The world, and capitalism, needs creativity and innovation and without it would breed a lull in change and technology. Obviously, change and technology are what drives our capitalistic society.

I remember my father always telling me that in order to appreciate and value the things you have you have to work for them yourself. I think the same holds true for business ventures. Having a personal interest and a personal bank account on line drives one to succeed possibly all the more than k working for a set paycheck. Wealth and prosperity are created with capitalism. Freedom, self-interest and competition make for a healthy environment engulfed in capitalism. Freedom is the rights to exchange products and capital.

Self-interest is the right to pursue ones own happiness (which after all is the American way) which transforms into pursuing ones own business and use it to appeal to the consumers. Competition, which wouldn't exist if it weren't for capitalism is the right to compete in the market of your choice. Like Kellogg (both brothers) and the MacGregor's they all had innovative ideas and thankfully capital to invest in their ideas. Reading about these case studies is proof that major corporations actually do start at basement level with a dollar and an idea. Their own self-interest in their idea are what created the companies to become what they are today. The aesthetic plays a huge part in the business culture.

Within a healthy workplace, businesspeople value creativity. Walking into an aesthetically pleasing building (like colorful paintings, sculptures and wall texture) enables entire departments to let loose their creative side and make their workdays more focused. Individual workplaces as well as communal workplaces are breeding grounds for creativity. Individual areas, like desks and offices, can be a huge way for people to connect to their families and interests outside of work. Some like a multitude of pictures of family and friends and some like more subtle hominess like potted plants or even a live fish. To some, surrounding themselves with what is important to them outside the workforces helps inspire their creativity.

Being happy in the workforce ultimately ties over into being happy in life. Communal workplace aesthetics have a philosophical impact on a company's culture. If employees walk into a drab office, there's a possibility they will not take pride in their company. The ordinary gray desks covered with clutter, the ragged office chairs, and scratched conference room tables will be impossible to overlook, even for the employees who want to give they " re all.

Eventually, a dank atmosphere takes its toll on a workforce's collective self-esteem. When people enter a clean and visually appealing office they feel more professional. An office becomes a second home to employees, and it should be a place where they feel comfortable. The worst feeling in the world is working in a place you can't wait to leave. Everyone loves when it's time to go home but the time spent at work should not feel like prison time.

Just as people enjoy living in attractive homes, they also appreciate a nice office. All in turn this will make for happy employees making for happy profits. When Benjamin Franklin said 'We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately' at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is doubtful that he had the businesspeople of the 20th century in his thought process. Let us not forget the word of Adolf Hitler who said "It must never be forgotten that nothing that is really great in this world has ever been achieved by coalitions, but that it has always been the success of a single victor". It's amazing how much has changed in our own lifetimes when it comes to business and general philosophy. With capitalism there is a general stigmata associated that it is generally for the good of the individual and what the individual will do to achieve the "American Dream".

All life is ultimately competitive because the natural propensity of the populace is to blow up. Everyone is trying to get a piece of whatever he or she can. This is like wild animals scavenging for food. Conservatives generally believe in a more competitive society while liberals favor a more cooperative one. Relationships between people have always had two components: competition and cooperation. It is difficult for anyone to have a completely competitive or completely cooperative relationship with another person.

In the first example, we are completely self-centered and wrapped up in ourselves. In the second example, we are altruistic and are concerned with the other person more than for ourselves. Most of us use a mixture of competition and cooperation in our dealings with other people. Even Republicans and Democrats in Congress cannot compete about legislation before they cooperate in setting up rules of debate. Cooperation in the workplace should be key. However, key players will ultimately stand out and the competition then begins.

It would be impossible to have cooperation without competition. It is generally true that those fortunate enough to work for highly profitable firms receive higher wages than those who work for barely profitable firms. But this is not the same as a firm giving its workers a large wage increases whenever it experiences a large profit increase. Firms seldom do this for reasons of efficiency, fairness, and the best interests of their workers. If a firm devoted its high profits to paying its current workers more than is justified by their productivity, it would be unable to attract the additional resources it needs to expand. The workers receiving the higher wages would be obviously better off in the short run, but their gains would be more than offset by the losses (forgone opportunities) suffered by others in the economy.

Even those who would get large wage increases because they work for firms creating high profits would probably not benefit from a policy of sharing in those profits, and certainly not if the policy were fairly implemented. If workers receive large wage increases when their firms is making large profits then fairness would require that they also receive wage cuts when profits decline. Workers obviously would not be happy with such a policy. Profit sharing plans are typically rather limited because even under the best of circumstances they do little to motivate workers to be more productive. Having workers share consistently in the profits of their firm is not a policy many workers would find attractive. Such profit sharing arrangements do little to motivate more productive effort, while imposing risk on workers that few are comfortable accepting.

This explains why profit sharing arrangements are often short lived. Unless workers are willing to take the losses that are inevitable in business activity, as well as the gains, the argument that fairness requires that workers share in profits of their firms is an empty one. Many workers, and their representatives who call for sharing profits with workers seem to believe that fairness means "heads I win, tails you lose". All workers are better off, and treated more fairly, when most profits are retained y firms to expand the production of goods and services that consumers are communicating with those profits that they want more of.