The 1999 comedy film “Office Space” depicts the working life of three main characters at an IT firm. The film has gained a cult following and many of the scenes and lines from the movie have become ingrained in the popular culture. The movie “Office Space” is comprised of several character types and situations that are familiar not just to workers in the field of Information Technology, but across the spectrum of the work world, especially the office environment. Several scenes will be examined here in detail and analyzed in regard to the I/O principles of motivation and leadership.
Introduction
“Office Space” is a 1999 film by Mike Judge that lampoons the corporate office environment. The film’s protagonist, Peter Gibbons, is a software programmer at IT firm Initech. whose mind-numbing primary duty is to comb through untold lines of the company’s existing computer code to upgrade their software to be “Y2K” compliant. Peter is joined in his workday misery by his two friends, Michael Bolton and Samir Nagheenanajar. Bolton endures constant irritation of people asking him if he’s related to the famous singer. Samir can’t understand why people can’t pronounce his name correctly, a running joke throughout the film. Most of the film revolves around the interactions between Peter and his condescending, out-of-touch boss, Bill Luhndberg, who spends much of the film wandering the maze of cubicles with his coffee mug in hand, reiterating meaningless policy edicts. Making continual brief appearances throughout the movie is Milton Waddams, a shy, reclusive employee who was laid off some years prior to the events of the film, only nobody told him and an accounting error caused him to continue to receive a paycheck. A main source...
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“Office Space” is a comedy movie of a man who desperately hates his job and his boss. The movie begins with Peter Gibbon’s daily life story at Initech. At work, Peter has to deal with his indifferent boss, Bill Lumbergh, who doesn’t want to listen to his employee’s feedbacks. Lumbergh seems to be an ignorant and arrogant man who dictates his employee and doesn’t want to be blamed at all. Moreover, Lumbergh asks his employee to come to work on weekend. The atmosphere in the office is getting more intense after Lumbergh announced that Initech is bringing in consultants to increase the efficiency of the company. Peter was very frustrated with everything in the office and he felt that his life even more miserable with each passing day at work. The following day, he decided to come to see a hypnotherapist in order to help him to have more positive outlook on life. Before the hypnotherapist finishes his hypnotic therapy on Peter, he has a heart attack unexpectedly and then dies. However, Peter was still under the influence of hypnosis and fails to come back to his normal state. The next day, Peter sleeps all day long – he actually supposed to come to work – and ignores all calls from his boss. On Monday, Peter comes to the office to have an interview with the consultants. Here, still under the influence of hypnosis, Peter blatantly tells everything he felt about the company. He even tells the interviewers that he only stare at his desk – looks like he is working – for hours to spend his time at work. In the end of the interview, Peter says that actually he is not lazy, but he has a problem with motivation. Peter has eight different bosses who will come by if Peter makes mistakes, so the only motivation that Peter has is not to be hassle...
This case study was about the president of Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, a restaurant chain specializing in seafood, whose practice structure and secret to success was to have and maintain minimal management turnover. In fact, his focus on turnover was so successful that he did not have a general manager leave for 3 years, and he has decreased management turnover from 36% to 16% in 2 years. The motivation of an organization’s employees significantly affects it success. Additionally, employee turnover, absenteeism, and tardiness weaken employee productivity.
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Of the numerous speculations of work motivation, Herzberg's (1998) motivator hygiene theory has been a standout amongst the most persuasive in late decades. Essentially, the hypothesis isolates propelling variables into two classifications: Motivator factors, which have a remark with the work itself, and Hygiene factors, which have a remark with the encompassing
673), retention management must be based on three types of turnover, voluntary, discharged, and downsizing. Not all businesses are freighted by turnovers, for some it is the way of life and cost is built into the budget. However, for others any type of high turnover can be detrimental for company profit, employee wage and benefits offered. First, let’s take a look at voluntary and involuntary turnover that affects retention. Voluntary turnovers are caused by many different reasons. Turnover may result from topics such as job dissatisfaction, job mismatching, knowing that job opportunities are plentiful. Two reasons that I will discuss more are micromanagement and employee loyalty. Like stated before in the introduction, when employees are dissatisfied, possibly due to being placed in an area that doesn’t fit with their skill set, one is more likely to seek new employment. Another part of turnover is discharging and downsizing. Discharge is just that, members being discharged due to discipline and job performance. While downsizing turnover is a result of business being overstaffed (Heneman III, Judge, Kammeyer-Mueller, 2015, pg. 675). There are also other reasons for voluntarily employee turnover, such as generation differences when it relates to employment. The current generations are more likely to see a job as one piece in their life puzzle rather than as the first, indispensable anchor piece without
The concept of self-efficacy is grounded in Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory. Bandura (1994) defines perceived self-efficacy as “people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce efforts” (p. 71). In essence, one having strong self-efficacy experience increase in motivation, accomplishment, and personal well-being ( Bandura, 1994). Those with a low sense of self-efficacy, on the other hand, often suffer stress and depression; unbelieving of their capabilities and often succumbed to failure (Bandura, 1994).
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In our modern culture success is often determined by ones measure of motivation to succeed. Without motivation there would be no ends to meet, no goals to accomplish, no movement from vision to reality. Society today recognizes the term “motivation” as a single reason to take action, but what they do not know is that there are many variations of it. (Cadwallader, Bitner, & Ostrom, 2010, Pg. 220) Motivation affects us in every aspect of our everyday lives, it is what causes change. In this literature review my purpose is to research correlations between motivation and how to improve it in the workplace.
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Motivation is an important function in organizations to motivate their employees for their ability to perform well, improving their skills, increasing productivity, job satisfaction and employee extension. Employees also are not a machines that we could just program their task in their brain and they will do it automatically, they require motivation to actually do their job properly. And so, after discussing the process models of the Maslow’s “Hierarchy of needs”, Douglas McGregor theory X and Y, and also the Herzberg’s “two factor motivation hygiene theory.” understanding the ways of motivating people, the human nature, and the substance of nature. I believe that the true motivation can only come from within and also managers can actually motivate all of their employees.