Pittiulak looked over the latest accident report and sighed to himself. One of his most junior workers, a house painter, had slipped off a ladder and broken his arm. Pittiulak felt terrible for him and his family, and was also worried about his ability to staff upcoming jobs. The injured worker would be away for weeks, if not months. This was the third significant accident in four months and it was simply unacceptable. Something was going very wrong with his painting and renovation work teams. He would need to fix it before more people got hurt, but how?

Pittiulak owned and managed a small renovation, drywalling, and painting firm in Yellowknife. He had 12 full-time workers, each with different areas of expertise. Some were skilled tradespeople (he employed a carpenter, a plumber, and an electrician), while others were drywall experts, framers, painters, and general labourers. When he received a new job, Pittiulak would select the employees with the right skills for the job and then create a self-managed project team. The team would work together until the project was complete and then move on to the next.

Some employees, most notably the tradespeople, would be on several teams simultaneously since they weren’t necessarily needed at the job site every day.

Four months ago Pittiulak had noticed that many of the projects were taking longer than expected. This created scheduling problems as jobs got backlogged. Customers got upset, in particular those whose renovations involved breaching walls of their home. Such repairs needed to happen during the brief summer months, and with their harsh climate there was not a lot of room for error.

Pittiulak decided to create a new team incentive. He would provide each project team with a target completion date (as usual), but now if they met that deadline the entire team would get a cash bonus. The bonus depended on the project but ranged from $35 to $85 per person.

The bonus was well received and seemed to accomplish its goals. The percentage of projects completed on time increased from 68 percent to 83 percent over the four-month period. Pittiulak could understand why. Last time he had visited a job site, he had noticed the carpenter and drywall installers hurrying the painters up to make sure the job got done in time for them all to get a bonus. The painters had looked tired and harried but they had gotten it done! Unfortunately, they’d had to replace a few tiles because in their haste they hadn’t moved a drop sheet over and paint had gotten on the floor. But still, it was done on time.

Initially Pittiulak had been thrilled with the success of his team incentive.

He couldn’t help but notice, however, that in the same four-month period three workers had been injured. One had fallen off a ladder trying to get a tool that was just out of reach, one had lost two fingers after failing to install the safety guard on a cutting tool, and the third had slipped on spilled coffee that nobody had cleaned up, hitting his head and getting a mild concussion. It was strange, since in the three previous years they had only had one significant accident.

Pittiulak wondered whether there might be any connection between his incentive program and their poor safety record. After consideration he realized that he needed to …

Discussion Questions

1. Do you think the new incentive plan is impacting the safety of this workplace? Explain your reasoning.

2. What types of team incentives would maximize both efficiency and safety while maintaining a respectful workplace? Explain why your strategy would be effective.

3. What are the benefits and drawbacks of Pittiulak’s self-directed project team structure? Is it a good choice for his business?

Explain your answer.