Very good post. Would love to see more summaries of research on hiring but also what makes employees happy, and similar topics. A question about work samples: What are your thoughts, and what is the research, on using real (paid) work instead of work samples? Meaning, identifying some existing task that actually needs to be done, rather than coming up with an “artificial” one.
There is a lot of research on that (and on closely related topics, such as motivation, sense of belonging, citizenship behavior, etc.), and I have only barely scratch the surface of it in my own readings. One important thing to keep in mind is that the variations (different people, different roles, different cultural contexts, different company cultures, etc.) really do matter, so what tends to make a particular group of employees happy in one situation might not tell us much about what tends to make another group of employees happy in a very similar situation. Some of the research confirms what many people suspect to be true: having clearly established goals helps, having a psychologically sage environment helps, etc. Some of the research shows results that are somewhat surprising: money actually does tend to be a pretty good motivator, when you ask people what they want and then give it to them they tend to be less happy than people for whom you make a decision.
I suspect there are whole textbooks on the topic of what tends to make employees happy, and I’d love to learn more about this research area. I have lots of loosely held opinions, but I’m familiar with very little of the research/
One framework that I am familiar with that I find helpful is the job characteristics theory, which roughly states that five different things tend to make people happy in their jobs: autonomy, a sense of completion, variety in the work, feedback from the job, and a sense of contribution. You can look the details of it more, but an interesting and simple exercise is to try reading through The Work Design Questionnaire while thinking about your own job.
Thank you for an excellent reply. I’ve for a long time found the “mastery, autonomy, purpose” concept useful and think of it as true – for lack of a better word. That these three aspects determine drive/motivation/happiness to a large extent, in a work context.
I’ve read only a little research on work samples, and I unfortunately haven’t yet read anything about being paid for work samples. Thus, I’m only able to share my own perspectives. My personal perspectives on work samples are roughly that:
a small amount of work (maybe 10-15 minutes) doesn’t really need to be paid, but larger amounts should be paid as a matter of principle.
I’ve read informal accounts online of relatively experienced applicants being upset or offended at being asked to do a work sample. The only accounts that I’ve read have been from developers/programmers with multiple years of work experience who were given a relatively large task; they were insulted that they needed to ‘prove their worth.’ I suspect that this negative reaction could be lessened by better communication around the work sample, and by making the sample smaller/shorter.
I think that paying an applicant as a contractor for a small piece of real work sounds nice if such a piece of work exists. I think that the reality tends to be harder, as often there is a lot of contextual information that a person needs in order to be able to do a piece of work.
I think of The Mythical Man-Month, and the idea that A) the communication costs of adding another staff person are high, and B) not all tasks can be broken into smaller tasks to be distributed.
I imagine that for some jobs it is easier and for some jobs it is harder. I can easily imagine a applicant to a recruiter job being asked to review 5 resumes and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each. But what about an applicant for a job to run an Intro Fellowship? I don’t want a bunch of new fellows to meet this person, and perceive this person as part of my team, and then this person screws up and it reflects badly on my organizations reputation.
It should probably not even be called a work sample under the circumstances I describe, but rather just work.
For example, if I’m hiring a communicator, I could ask them to spend two hours on improving the text of a web page. That could be a typical actual work task at some point, but this “work sample” also creates immediate value. If the improvements are good, they could be published regardless of whether that person is hired or not. This is also why you would pay an applicant for those two hours.
A very simplified example, but I hope the point comes across. And like you mention, for some types of work such isolated tasks are much more prevalent.
Very good post. Would love to see more summaries of research on hiring but also what makes employees happy, and similar topics. A question about work samples: What are your thoughts, and what is the research, on using real (paid) work instead of work samples? Meaning, identifying some existing task that actually needs to be done, rather than coming up with an “artificial” one.
There is a lot of research on that (and on closely related topics, such as motivation, sense of belonging, citizenship behavior, etc.), and I have only barely scratch the surface of it in my own readings. One important thing to keep in mind is that the variations (different people, different roles, different cultural contexts, different company cultures, etc.) really do matter, so what tends to make a particular group of employees happy in one situation might not tell us much about what tends to make another group of employees happy in a very similar situation. Some of the research confirms what many people suspect to be true: having clearly established goals helps, having a psychologically sage environment helps, etc. Some of the research shows results that are somewhat surprising: money actually does tend to be a pretty good motivator, when you ask people what they want and then give it to them they tend to be less happy than people for whom you make a decision.
I suspect there are whole textbooks on the topic of what tends to make employees happy, and I’d love to learn more about this research area. I have lots of loosely held opinions, but I’m familiar with very little of the research/
One framework that I am familiar with that I find helpful is the job characteristics theory, which roughly states that five different things tend to make people happy in their jobs: autonomy, a sense of completion, variety in the work, feedback from the job, and a sense of contribution. You can look the details of it more, but an interesting and simple exercise is to try reading through The Work Design Questionnaire while thinking about your own job.
Thank you for an excellent reply. I’ve for a long time found the “mastery, autonomy, purpose” concept useful and think of it as true – for lack of a better word. That these three aspects determine drive/motivation/happiness to a large extent, in a work context.
I’ve read only a little research on work samples, and I unfortunately haven’t yet read anything about being paid for work samples. Thus, I’m only able to share my own perspectives. My personal perspectives on work samples are roughly that:
a small amount of work (maybe 10-15 minutes) doesn’t really need to be paid, but larger amounts should be paid as a matter of principle.
I’ve read informal accounts online of relatively experienced applicants being upset or offended at being asked to do a work sample. The only accounts that I’ve read have been from developers/programmers with multiple years of work experience who were given a relatively large task; they were insulted that they needed to ‘prove their worth.’ I suspect that this negative reaction could be lessened by better communication around the work sample, and by making the sample smaller/shorter.
I think that paying an applicant as a contractor for a small piece of real work sounds nice if such a piece of work exists. I think that the reality tends to be harder, as often there is a lot of contextual information that a person needs in order to be able to do a piece of work.
I think of The Mythical Man-Month, and the idea that A) the communication costs of adding another staff person are high, and B) not all tasks can be broken into smaller tasks to be distributed.
I imagine that for some jobs it is easier and for some jobs it is harder. I can easily imagine a applicant to a recruiter job being asked to review 5 resumes and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each. But what about an applicant for a job to run an Intro Fellowship? I don’t want a bunch of new fellows to meet this person, and perceive this person as part of my team, and then this person screws up and it reflects badly on my organizations reputation.
It should probably not even be called a work sample under the circumstances I describe, but rather just work.
For example, if I’m hiring a communicator, I could ask them to spend two hours on improving the text of a web page. That could be a typical actual work task at some point, but this “work sample” also creates immediate value. If the improvements are good, they could be published regardless of whether that person is hired or not. This is also why you would pay an applicant for those two hours.
A very simplified example, but I hope the point comes across. And like you mention, for some types of work such isolated tasks are much more prevalent.