Back on 11/21/08 I wrote an article titled The "What If" Fallacy, examining the attendance strategy of my union local. To increase attendance, they have a drawing each meeting, the winner receiving a hefty sum of money. If the one whose name is drawn isn't present, they don't win anything and their name is shown at work on the union bulletin board (I suppose to publicly humiliate them). The amount to win in the attendance drawing is increased with each meeting if not claimed. Once someone succeeds in winning a drawing, the total offered in the next meeting reverts back to a nominal $50. To be eligible for the drawing, all one has to do is be a (local) union member. I examined the flaws in the argument for this attendance strategy in the previous article (hit the link to read it). Now I have some new information on the drawing that, in my opinion, makes it even more flawed.
Union officers and stewards are expected to attend these union meetings. Photos from my local's newsletter reflects this: the attendees are heavily weighted with officers and stewards (and they tend to be the ones winning the drawing), with a few (very few) rank and file members sprinkled in [correction: executive board officers don't take part in the drawing--thanks, Brian]. This is probably just as well, since there really isn't very much room at the meeting site to accommodate more than a handful of people anyway. But to spur greater attendance, anyone attending a meeting gets an extra entry in the drawing for each meeting they attend. So if I, say, attended 5 meetings, then I would have my name in the drawing "pot" on 6 pieces of paper, greatly increasing my odds of winning, a clear incentive to attend. On the other hand, if I attend the meetings and want to win the drawing, then the last thing I would want is for others to start attending since their names would also be multiplied in the pot, thereby reducing my own chances of winning. So what we end up with is a few people faithfully attending meetings while not exactly wholeheartedly encouraging others to join them. I don't think that's what the creators of this scheme had in mind...
Maybe I'm sounding a little cynical about all this. After all, shouldn't we just show our "union spirit" and attend meetings for their own sake? But it wasn't me who concocted and implemented this attendance drawing strategy. And I probably would never had commented on it were it not for the continuing deplorable practice of publicizing the drawings' "losers".
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I suspect that few people actually think about the effect of others' attendance, and that it's more likely to generate the sort of esprit de corps that they're hoping for: people tell their buddies that it's a great way to win a few extra bucks
ReplyDeleteI recommend refreshments. I was talking with one of my VPs at IBM about how to get people to attend large group meetings, and I said the same thing then. He agreed, adding, "You can pay someone six figures, and he'll still get sucked in by free cookies."
They do have some kind of light refreshment at these meetings, but in earlier years they used to be very generous with the food, offering full breakfasts at one place and a full bar-be-que lunch at another.
ReplyDeleteAnother inducement to attendance would be to schedule meetings at some time other than Sunday mornings, when they are always held.
They also used to have an attendance drawing, based on who was actually there. The names of those attending would be put in a box and one would be drawn out, with the winner getting $25. Showing an attendance winner's name on the bulletin board each time would be a POSITIVE inducement for attending meetings, instead of stressing who wasn't there.