Pizza has a magic ability to make everything seem better.
When you have nothing in your fridge or can’t be bothered cooking, pizza is always the go-to frozen food.
But it seems that pizza does more than just taste delicious – it can also seriously motivate a workforce according to New York Magazine.
Employee Dan Ariely was working with Intel when an email was sent out about working extra hard that day, the workers received one of the three following emails: One offered a cash bonus. The other said that their boss would give them a rare compliment. But the third said they would get a voucher for free pizza.
The study was easy to measure because their jobs involved assembling a certain amount of computer chips each day. And an increase in computer chips made that day could easily be linked back to who got which email.
On the first day, pizza proved to be the top motivator above the other two offers. Productivity increased by 6.7 percent for those who got an email about getting pizza, while compliments were incredibly valued by colleagues with productivity increasing by 6.6 percent for those who received an email about the ‘rare compliment’.
Surprisingly, money seemed to be the lowest motivator, as only 4.9 percent of people increased productivity when they were offered a cash bonus.
Over the week of the study, the motivation of those who were offered money dropped significantly but those who were offered pizza and compliments remained motivated and productive.
Ariely covered this in his book Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations which looks at what drives us to be better.
It’s interesting to see that money isn’t a top factor when it comes to motivation, but social things like eating pizza (presumably with other people) and receiving genuine compliments from people are the key methods to ensuring employees work hard.
So the next time your boss says you’re not doing enough work, ask him to order you a pizza.
