Mitchell Hoffman, University of Toronto Rotman School of Management

Seminar

Date: Tuesday 30 May 2023

Time: 13.00 – 14.30

Location: IIES Seminar Room A822/Zoom

Is This Really Kneaded? Identifying and Eliminating Potentially Harmful Monitoring Practices, with Guido Friebel, Matthias Heinz, Tobias Kretschmer and Nick Zubanov.

 
Is This Really Kneaded? Identifying and Eliminating Potentially Harmful Monitoring Practices, with Guido Friebel, Matthias Heinz, Tobias Kretschmer and Nick Zubanov.
 
Abstract: In a large German bakery chain, many workers report negative perceptions of monitoring via checklists. We survey workers and managers about the value and time costs to all in-store checklists, leading the firm to randomly remove two of the most perceivedly time-consuming and low-value checklists in half of stores. Sales increase by 2-3\% and store manager attrition substantially decreases. Mystery shopping indicates this occurs without a rise in workplace problems. Before random assignment, regional managers predict whether the treatment would be effective for each of the stores that they oversee. Ex post, beneficial effects of checklist removal are fully concentrated in stores where regional managers predict that the treatment will be effective, reflecting substantial heterogeneity in returns that is well-understood by these upper managers. Effects of checklist removal do not appear to come from workers having more time for production, but rather due to improvements in employee trust and commitment. Following the RCT, the firm implemented firmwide reductions in monitoring, eliminating a checklist that employees regard as demeaning, but keeping a checklist that helps coordinate production.
 

The seminar is in the IIES Seminar Room and can also be joined via zoom, click here or use Meeting ID: 662 1720 1666