Employee of the Month

After watching “Employee of the Month,” it was clear to see that there were two main issues. These issues were motivation and ethics and they both came up throughout the entire movie. It was almost immediately shown that moviation was an issue at the Super Club (where they all work) with almost all of the employees, each seemingly being motivated in a different manor. Since the main protagonist of the movie was Zack (played by Dane Cook), an in-depth look at how his motivation changes throughout the movie would be a great comparison to the real life problems of motivation that employers face. The best way to understand Zack’s styles of motivation would be to look at them through Maslow’s
Then at the end of the month the stars are counted up and the one with the most is the employee of the month. In order for this theory to work, however, there are some principles that must be met: 1) Set clear and specific goals, 2) Assign difficult but achievable goals, 3) Increase employee acceptance of goals, 4) Provide incentives to achieve goals, and 5) Give feedback on goal attainment. The first principle is met in this instance. The employees are aware of what they need to do to attain a gold sticker, and that they need the most stickers to achieve the goal of employee of the month. The second principle is met as well. The goal is difficult in that you have to be better than everyone for most of the month, but there is always a winner every month so it is obviously achievable. The managers may need to work on the third principle, though. Not all the employees, like Zack in the beginning, accept the goal or think they are worth achieving. The managers could potentially involve employees in the goal-setting process to make them more accepting of the goals. There may not be any monetary incentives for the employee of the month, but there is a higher status associated with the title. This fact means that the fourth principle is being met. When someone is made employee of the month, they receive the intangible incentive of being recognized by their co-workers and