14 Apr 2009 1 min read

The Hawthorne effect: Attention matters in the workplace

Mark Shead at Productivity 501 explains the Hawthorne effect:

The Hawthorne effect refers to some studies that were done on how training impacts employees’ productivity at work. The studies found that sending someone to training produces employees that work harder.

The funny part about it is that you still get the productivity increase even if the training doesn’t teach them how to be better at their jobs. Sending someone to training helps them feel like they are important, like the company is investing in them and they are valuable. Because of this, they work harder.

The original research wasn't about training, it concerned experiments looking at workplace lighting levels.

It turned out that adjusting light levels led to productivity improvements, but the real driver wasn’t the lighting itself. Workers performed better because they felt noticed and valued.

For more on this phenomenon, check out Shead’s post on Productivity 501. The Wikipedia entry on the Hawthorne effect also provides a thorough overview. Another concise explanation comes from Donald Clark’s blog.

He writes:

The Hawthorne effect – an increase in worker productivity produced by the psychological stimulus of being singled out and made to feel important.

Clarke links The Hawthorne effect to work done by Frederick Taylor who gave birth to the idea of industrial psychology.

My experience as a manager says paying individual attention to workers should be a matter of course. The payoff can be immediate.

Sadly this isn’t obvious to everyone and it certainly wasn’t obvious back in the 1920s and 1930s when these ideas were fresh and new. If you notice the Hawthorne effect happening with the workers at your workplace, it’s a sign you aren’t managing people correctly.