About Our Initiative
Occupy Brandywine School District is a not-for-profit movement of parents, teachers, students, and alumni that want a fair environment to work and learn.
Our primary objective is to stop the 2012 Brandywine School District referendum for raising property taxes. As insiders, we know that money can be better utilized. In this turbulent economy of falling stock prices, foreclosures and unemployment, our public schools need to budget with the resources they already have.
We have heard countless stories of subordinates being treated unfairly by administrators to the point of emotional abuse. Many teachers and support staff say the Brandywine School District is an unhappy place to work.
Treating people poorly, witch hunts, and bad attitudes make for an unhappy and demotivated workplace. The subordinates suffer. In this trickle-down effect of contagious bad attitudes, it is the students that suffer most.
We hope that these tragic stories will result in positive change. Society now acknowledges the wrongs of discrimination and racism. One day, bullying in the workplace will be treated with the same contempt. We suggest BSD administrators adhere to the following words of wisdom.
TEN MOST POWERFUL MOTIVATORS
(1) INPUT:
Solicit employees’ ideas, and use them. Involve employees in planning,
decision making, and problem-solving. Not only will this motivate
them, but you will be amazed how many great ideas workers will come up
with.
(2) CHOICE: Let employees make choices
about their work. Obviously there are “mandatory” tasks that have to be
performed, but letting employees fill out their job descriptions with
“discretionary” tasks of their own choosing will give them a far greater
sense of ownership in their work.
(3) RESPONSIBILITY:
Expand employees’ responsibilities. Employees today want more
responsibility, not less – as long as it is real responsibility (not
just dumping more work on them) and it comes with commensurate
authority.
(4) TEAMWORK: Use the power of
teamwork. You can mobilize enormous energy by forming teams to improve
every aspect of an organization. But, make sure each team has clear
goals and guidelines up-front.
(5) LEARNING:
Increase learning opportunities. You don’t need to spend a fortune on
formal training classes; just include learning goals in each employee’s
job description.
(6) FUN: Add a little fun to
work. No matter how tedious and routine work tasks might be, any work
can be made more motivating by interspersing occasional fun activities,
such as humor, contests, surprise treats, and “productive” social
interaction.
(7) MEASUREMENT: Encourage
continuous “scorekeeping.” The key to motivation measurement lies in
the feedback it provides. Identify key measures for each job and keep a
running “scorecard” for each employee and each work group. This way
employees will always know exactly how they are doing and will be better
able to improve their own performance.
(8) GOALS:
Set challenging goals. Don’t be afraid to set goals high. Ambitious
goals are highly motivating, as long as employees understand why the
goals are important and are confident that they won’t be penalized
should they fall a little short.
(9) APPRECIATION:
Create a “climate of appreciation.” Nothing motivates like sincere
appreciation. Unfortunately, few organizations show adequate
recognition for employees’ contributions, especially for their extra
efforts. When extra effort isn’t appreciated, employees stop trying so
hard.
(10) SIGNIFICANCE: Stress the significance
of work. Some employees perceive their work as drudgery, while others
view the same work as “a calling.” In other words, do employees
recognize the value of their organization’s products or services and
their contribution to improving customer’s lives?
Incidentally, not one of these motivators costs a penny!
TEN “MOST DEADLY” DEMOTIVATORS
BSD are masters of demotivation. Let's hope this changes.
(1) POLITICS:
Most employees are all too familiar with subjective decision-making
which operates according to unwritten “rules of success,” having little
to do with performance. Under such conditions, the lion’s share of
rewards, promotions, and resources go to those who are the best at
“playing politics.”
(2) UNCLEAR EXPECTATIONS:
Mixed messages and confused priorities often cause employees to work on
the wrong tasks and accomplish the wrong results, only to find out –
after the fact (usually at performance appraisal time) – that they were
on the wrong track.
(3) UNPRODUCTIVE MEETINGS:
Meetings are important, but too many are unnecessary, disorganized,
passive, lengthy, and boring – leaving employees, according to one
observer, “feeling powerless as another meeting wanders into oblivion.”
(4) CONSTANT CHANGE:
Change is vital to organizational success, but today’s workplace is
turbulent enough without unnecessary changes, which employees deride as
“programs-of-the-month” and which are often adopted and discontinued
without any follow-up whatsoever.
(5) DISHONESTY:
Whether it involves making a false claim, covering up a mistake,
omitting a key fact, saying one thing but doing another, or an outright
lie, nothing demotivates employees like being deceived by their
organization.
(6) WITHHOLDING INFORMATION: One
of the most common employee complaints is “not being informed.” How
many times have you heard, “I wish I had known that earlier” or “The
Company doesn’t keep us informed about what’s happening”? Lack of
information makes employees feel stupid and distrusted.
(7) DISCOURAGING RESPONSES:
Too many organizations and managers say they want employees’ ideas, but
then ignore them. Most employees are familiar with discouraging
phrases (such as “It can’t be done here”) and many suggestion systems
are “black holes” into which suggestions seem to disappear, never to be
seen again. Just consider how many millions of great ideas were killed
by this demotivator alone, not to mention the devastating impact it has
had on workers’ self-esteem.
(8) UNFAIRNESS:
Nothing offends employees like preferential treatment, special favors,
and perks given to some but not to others. Most workers become
particularly irate when they learn of astronomical management
compensation packages, while excellent employees are paid only a few
dollars more than those who do the minimum.
(9) BEING TAKEN FOR GRANTED:
Employees everywhere report that they receive little or no positive
feedback or recognition, not even for their outstanding efforts.
(10) BEING FORCED TO DO POOR-QUALITY WORK:
Short-term time and cost constraints too often force quality
compromises. Being robbed of the right to pride in workmanship is
demoralizing and demeaning to employees. As one discouraged worker
lamented: “We all knew the product was garbage, but it was shipped
anyway. We left work each day feeling awful.”
[source: Dean R. Spitzer, Ph.D.]