Never Mind Perks, What About A Good Thrashing?

Of course, for yesterday’s youngsters, the only incentive to do well at school was the prospect of being spared a flogging, but things are different for the Harry Potter generation. Two recent stories in The Times, one headlined “McDonald’s offers US children free fast food for good schoolwork”, and another entitled “Well-behaved pupils given video games and executive perks”, suggest that kids are increasingly being incentivised like company employees. But are teachers wise to seek inspiration from business? Do perks actually work?

On the face of it, it seems that they must. Why else would companies put so much effort into providing them? A couple of years ago I visited a PR company called Fishburn Hedges and was shocked to discover that its staff, in addition to traditional benefits such as gym membership, were offered pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, Valentine gifts on February 14, ice-cream on hot days, company-wide drinks on promotion, presents on wedding days and visits from senior management on hospitalisation.

But these perks do not seem particularly indulgent after my discovery this week that Microsoft offers some staff free valet parking and an annual summer picnic, that Google offers a swimming spa and free doctors on site and that companies elsewhere offer everything from dating agency subscriptions to confetti canons discharged to celebrate birthdays and “zen gardens” for relaxation. And it seems the higher you move up the corporate ladder, the more lavish the perks. Remember the $15,000 dog-shaped umbrella stand bought for Dennis Kozlowski, the former chief executive of Tyco? Even this seems sober when compared to the benefits that world leaders bestow upon themselves. The most outrageous must be Swaziland’s King Mswati III, who, in a bid to find his thirteenth wife, reportedly ordered a “reed dance”, where 20,000 bare-breasted teenage virgins were required to dance provocatively for him. That certainly puts my use of the staff car park in perspective.

But to return to the question, do any perks, lavish or otherwise, actually result in more motivated employees? Research conducted last year by YouGov and Employee Benefits magazine suggests so: it found that out of a possible list of 24 benefits, such as company discounts, British employees receive an average of 3.6, and that the happiest employees “tend to get more”. But I think we need to take this report with a pinch of complementary salt because (a) the employee benefits industry is hardly an impartial observer and (b) common sense suggests that the relationship between perks and performance is not directly proportional. If it were, then Fishburn Hedges would be on its way to becoming Microsoft, Swaziland would be on its way to becoming the United States and you would always get more competence the higher you went up in a company.

Indeed, several factors distort the relationship between perks and performance and one of them is the fact that some benefits evidently motivate more than others. I’ve just trashed the aforementioned survey, but one of its more believable findings was that three particular incentives - a bonus, private medical insurance and flexible working – motivate people more than others. But beyond this, it is chaos. One person may be chuffed to get a “free” BlackBerry, while another may view it as a method of professional enslavement. One person may coo at the prospect of a staff picnic, another will throw up. And I must confess that many of the aforementioned so-called “perks” fill me with dread. I hate working at home, so you can take your flexible working and shove it up your zen garden, and if I had to go into hospital to have, say, my bunions removed, I doubt it would do my recovery much good if James Murdoch paid a visit. And I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t feel particularly motivated by it, either.

What constitutes a perk is subjective, but even this is not necessarily true because one’s subjectiveness changes with age. If you offered the average school-leaver a choice between private medical insurance and a Big Mac, I fear most would go for the hamburger. And I doubt undergraduates, who tend to judge careers by the perks that come with jobs, would be much more rational. There are several thousand people who became management consultants because a firm offered them a warm glass of Chablis during a recruitment seminar.

On reflection, perhaps the simplest thing to say about perks is that they don’t matter as much as business thinks they do. The company voted the best place to work in Europe last year by the Great Place to Work Institute was Ferrari, not because it offers every employee a free 612 Scaglietti but because it is a successful and interesting company. Similarly, I have just read through the fine print of my contract and discovered that, officially, I’m entitled to no perks whatsoever – no pension, no bonus, just four weeks’ notice when I’m inevitably fired. But I’m still here, wittering away. Why? Because the only thing that really matters is satisfying work.

Nobody ever resigned from a position because they weren’t given a dog-shaped umbrella stand, and teachers are fools if they think that kids can be motivated by gifts and prizes. Should they disagree, I suggest that they read another recent story in The Times, entitled “School abandons cash reward idea as success matters more”, which reported that the City Academy in Bristol, “one of the first to offer financial rewards for good exam results in 2002”, is now abandoning the scheme, saying that pupils are motivated by success, not money.

Though, having said that, I do think further research should be conducted on the invigorating effects of a vigorous thrashing.

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