Latest news with #janitor
South China Morning Post
09-07-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
How to ‘sludge' HK migrants into leaving the UK and Canada
'Nudging' is the gentle way of pushing you towards making good choices; think of your nice parents. 'Sludging' is the opposite, designed to encourage you to make bad or at least suboptimal decisions; picture the car/insurance/mobile phone/real estate salesmen. They are terms in pop psychology borrowed from behavioural and cognitive sciences. Some governments such as that under former British prime minister David Cameron even set up a department of nudges, though it had a more respectable title. Whether it ended up nudging or sludging citizens remains a matter of dispute. One amusing example of nudging is about a European international airport – I forget which one – that needed to cut budgets and slash the number of toilet cleaners. So they started putting tiny toy-like goalposts at the centre of urinals so male users naturally aimed better rather than splashing all over. Here's another example, from an American comedy. The girls in a high school take to kissing – pressing lipsticks on – the big mirror in a school toilet. That creates a lot more work for the janitor. Instead of posting a public warning, the cleaner openly mops the mirror with water taken from toilet bowls for everyone to see. That stops the kissing practice in no time. There are, however, supposedly more sophisticated principles guiding a nudging policy when being launched, say getting workers to join a pension fund. It should be transparent and never misleading. Other choices, even those considered suboptimal, should still be available. You can easily opt out of any option you choose, at least within a reasonable time frame. And it should encourage behaviour that benefits you. Now imagine they are all turned into their opposites, and you have sludging in all its glory.
Fast Company
16-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
How to reframe mundane tasks with meaning
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy visited NASA for the first time. While on a tour of the facility, the president met a janitor in the hallway. As the story goes, Kennedy casually asked the janitor what he did for NASA, and the janitor replied, 'I'm helping put a man on the moon.' Put simply: The janitor knew the purpose of his work. He had to keep the building clean so that the scientists, engineers, and astronauts could focus on their jobs to put 'a man on the moon.' As mundane as mopping the floors might seem, the janitor connected his purpose to the scientists and saw how his small contribution fit within NASA's larger mission. While we all don't work at NASA, there's a reason why this metaphor is so resonant—just about every line of work comes with tasks that feel tedious and menial, but still must be completed. From bookkeeping to monitoring updates to producing reports, routine tasks are often maintained for a reason: They play a part in an organization's success. These repetitive tasks provide structure, help manage priorities, and inform growth opportunities. They can also signal problems for the future. As business leaders, we are used to seeing the full, big picture of the company's functions, and know how important these practices are to the vitality of a company. But is that true for the team members responsible for handling these tasks? When a team member finds their tasks to be rote and the value murky, you have a perfect storm for employee disengagement. How can business leaders help ignite a sense of meaning among employees when they must deal with the doldrums of routine office work? Here are five ways to keep them engaged: 1. CONNECT THE TASK TO THE BIG-PICTURE VALUE Leaders who map out single contributions and connect them to overarching goals will be best equipped to support employees in denoting meaning to their work. For example, a leader should say something like, 'If we don't write this report to measure our impact, we can't request more funding, which in turn will allow us to hire more employees and ultimately move closer to achieving our larger goal of X, Y, and Z.' This approach will enable employees to understand the impact of a small task. 2. CONNECT TASKS TO ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVES Work with your employees to connect all the work they do to the larger organizational purpose, not just the major projects or proposals. Making this connection between daily tasks and the bigger picture is crucial for employees to understand not just the what, but the why behind their contributions. It may feel tedious to enter data points into a spreadsheet, but owning the team's progress toward a key KPI is a role of responsibility and value. 3. TAP INTO INDIVIDUAL GOALS Another way to bring meaning to tasks is to make connections between an employee's personal interests, values, and professional goals, and to draw connections between these tasks and what matters to them. For example, if an employee is eager to demonstrate their readiness for the next promotion, explore with them how their ownership of a task can be elevated to enrich their leadership or big-picture perspective. Even if there are good reasons for these rote tasks, new ideas are worth exploring. If an employee is expressing frustration with a task, take it as an opportunity for discussion. Can they offer suggestions to make the task more streamlined? Are new tools available that could free up their time for other work? When a company culture is founded in openness, collaboration, and curiosity—traits of a coaching culture—this type of brainstorming and discussion becomes second-nature. 5. CELEBRATE EMPLOYEE CONTRIBUTIONS For both leaders and team members, it's important to appreciate the little wins and be present in the work being done. Acknowledge everyone's accomplishments and their impacts, both big and small. At every level, employees should be guided by performance indicators or measures of success that connect back to the organization's objectives. Expecting your employees to perform seemingly meaningless or insignificant tasks without clear value is a quick recipe for disengagement and frustration. No matter how small a task, when you take the time to connect every team member's responsibilities to overall organizational objectives, empower employees to contribute to improving processes, and recognize their contributions, employees will take pride in their efforts, leading to talent loyalty and longevity.
