The Summary of the Marketplace Money Podcast
The story presented as the Marketplace Money Podcast on October 18, 2013, discusses the topic of modifying the employees’ behaviors with references to the financial incentives, and this topic is directly related to the field of management. With references to the problem of the healthy lifestyle, Dr. Kevin Volpp states that today many companies propose definite effective rewards and implement financial incentives for the employees in order to promote their inclinations to follow the principles of the healthy lifestyle (“Modifying Behavior with Financial Incentives”).
In this case, the accents are made on the support of the healthy workforce in order to guarantee the better employees’ performance and on the idea of rewards as the important aspects to stimulate the employees’ motivation. Thus, according to Dr. Kevin Volpp, those employers who support the idea are inclined to rely on decreasing the healthcare costs and on increasing the employees’ performance rates within the companies (“Modifying Behavior with Financial Incentives”).
The popularity of such initiatives supports the vision that the employees’ motivation can be successfully affected with the help of such managerial strategies as the provision of the significant rewards for persons who support the employers’ projects (“Modifying Behavior with Financial Incentives”). Furthermore, the proposed system of rewards is closely connected not only with promoting the employee healthy programs but also with decreasing the insurance premiums to achieve the balance in relation to the strategies’ profitability.
Summary of “Undercover Boss”
The episodes from the CBS reality series “Undercover Boss” are the effective illustrations of the necessity to analyze, revise, change, and modify the managerial strategies with references to the companies’ goals and employees’ needs. Those bosses who participate in the reality series are inclined to understand the everyday realities of employees in their companies in order to improve the strategy and to achieve the higher performance results (“Undercover Boss”). From this point, the idea of leadership affecting management within the company is discussed in the reality series. To orient to the company’s progress, leaders should learn the realities of each worker’s experience and, as a result, his or her potential to contribute to the company’s development.
The importance of the leader’s responsibility and the ability to provide initiatives are also illustrated in the reality series because after observing the realities of the employees’ work and while focusing on the employees’ needs, many bosses perform some actions to change the situation and to improve the working conditions. It is stated in the series clearly that a leader or a manager should understand and realize the employees’ realities to promote the workers’ better performance (“Undercover Boss”). Furthermore, it is always important to take responsibility in relation to the organization of the employees’ work.
Moreover, the reality show is focused on the discussion of the effective organizational cultures which can contribute to leading the company to the success. Thus, becoming an undercover boss, the leader of the company can examine and analyze the effectiveness of the followed organizational culture in order to overcome the determined weaknesses and improve it according to the company’s mission and goals. Thus, “Undercover Boss” is the interesting and rather provocative reality series which can provide a lot of perfect illustrations and evidences to discuss such important managerial concepts as the notions and ideas of leadership, responsibility, job performance, motivation, and organizational culture (“Undercover Boss”).
Works Cited
Modifying Behavior with Financial Incentives: Marketplace Money. 2013. Web.
Undercover Boss: CBS Website. 2013. Web.