The Enthusiastic Employee: How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What They Want

Chapter 8. Job Challenge

	“The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic, and to some extent even antibiotic—in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea—known to medical science is work.”
	--Thomas Szasz, M.D., Psychiatrist, Author

The previous chapter focused on enablement, which is creating an organization where workers can get their jobs done and the positive impact that such enablement has on their satisfaction and pride. But efficient, even high quality, performance is not sufficient. The work itself—what is done—is also critical.

For example, for many workers, doing simple, repetitive work for long periods of time (no matter how well done) can be highly unsatisfying, even intolerable. Here are some comments from ...