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President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin
In Russia, all the «classic» methods of staff motivation do not work. The heads of enterprises have learned from their own experience that tariff, piecework, bonus, tariff-free, mixed and other wage systems do not justify themselves in our country. KPIs, grading systems and other Western managerial innovations do not work as they should. Methods of non-material motivation do not give results. Do not help leaders and incentive systems developed by them themselves. Russian personnel did not work as they should, do not work and are not going to work. The question arises: What is the problem?
How labor is stimulated in Germany and Japan
To deal with the problem, first consider how the work of the Germans is paid. All of their wages are based on salary. Any payments above the salary are extremely rare and very insignificant. Even sellers are not accepted to pay a percentage of sales. German workers do not need this. They work well anyway: the whole world admires German quality. They have high labor productivity. And there is no piecework payment and no other «cunning» incentive system and is not required.
The situation is similar in Japan. Japanese workers are disciplined and initially focused on efficient work. They strictly follow all the orders of their immediate superiors and strictly follow all instructions. Most companies use the so-called floating salary system. But this is just a variation of the salary system. Therefore, Japanese workers are also on salaries, on time wages.
It turns out that the guarantee of effective work of the staff is not at all where Russian leaders are looking for — not in the «deal», not in the systems of material and non-material incentives. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese have these systems. Then what motivates them to productive work?
Why the Germans and Japanese are productive
The effectiveness of organizations in each country directly depends on the characteristics of the national mentality, under the influence of which the organizational culture and collective thinking are formed at enterprises. It is the mentality and collective thinking that make a person behave in a certain way.
As the mentality determines the typical behavior of the inhabitants of a particular country, so the collective thinking in the organization determines the typical behavior of the staff.
The inhabitants of Germany and Japan are by their nature executive, disciplined, gravitate towards order and organization. As a result, in German and Japanese companies, due to the peculiarities of the mentality, a special (rational, effective) collective thinking is formed. All employees are initially set up for well-coordinated and productive collective work. They are diligent and strive to carry out the instructions of their superiors in the best possible way. The management of companies does not waste time on solving management problems, as their Russian counterparts do. Traditional leaders are engaged in strategic tasks, successfully implement ERP systems, lean manufacturing, ISO. They confidently increase the productivity and quality of work, the competitiveness and profitability of their enterprises.
Consequently, the national mentality of economically developed countries is the basis for the effective work of national organizations.
Features of management in Russia
The Russians are characterized by legal and labor nihilism, low discipline, non-execution, work «sloppy». As a result, in Russian organizations and collective thinking is different. The Russian worker does not think about productivity, and labor collectives are not set up for well-coordinated productive work.
Therefore, all sorts of organizational problems constantly come to the level of the top management of enterprises: delays, violation of deadlines, violation of instructions, inconsistency between departments, downtime, overstocking, marriage, shortages, high production costs, etc. And instead of solving strategic problems, the Russian leader is forced to deal with these organizational problems, since they generate significant losses and reduce profits. Moreover, these problems generate organizational chaos. As a result, Russian enterprises fail to properly implement either the automation system, or ISO, or lean manufacturing. Nothing works the way it should work.
Thus, the problem of low organization and low productivity lies in the field of mentality and collective thinking. Therefore, all known labor incentive systems turn out to be useless — they do not allow improving the efficiency of personnel management, as many Russian managers have seen.
Domestic organizations can be made efficient and competitive. To do this, it is necessary to change the collective thinking — to make it the same as in the leading foreign companies. In other words, in order for a Russian worker to start working well, it is necessary to create such a collective mindset in which it is impossible to work “in a slipshod manner”; such conditions under which the employee could not even think about a bad job.