The firm in question is an exam board based in the UK. Each summer they employ hundreds of people to perform relatively simple tasks such as counting exam papers and checking that examiners have added up the marks correctly. The work is highly repetitive and each worker may see thousands of papers in total. The employees are initially hired for several weeks, but the company then keeps on the workers it wants for some weeks afterwards. Obviously, the incentive for most workers is to be kept on for the additional weeks.
So how, you may be wondering, does the company use this potential extra work as an incentive to encourage high productivity?
Not very well, it turns out.
Their only mechanism for measuring productivity is simple: The number of mistakes each employee makes on exam papers. This is flawed. Take an example: two people who each make one mistake per 10 papers they process. Derek is highly motivated to get the extra work and processes 500 papers in a day, while Herbert is not motivated and only processes 100. According to the company's measure, Derek has made the most mistakes and is thus less productive. Thus Herbert should be kept on.
According to my secret whistle-blower there is another flaw in the system. The line managers who decide whom to keep on are largely motivated to keep fun, interesting people in the office (being surrounded by boring people for weeks on end is no fun at all). Who are they likely to think is fun and interesting? The people who stop working to have a nice chat with them on a regular basis. Thus those who are less productive because they are constantly seeking conversations with their bosses are more likely to be kept on than those working too hard to have a natter.
In conclusion, this is a clear case of tragically poor incentivisation that is unfair on those who work the hardest, not to mention bad for the company in question.
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