PROMISES are made to be broken 鈥� especially if you鈥檙e top dog. Workers don鈥檛 care so much about whether their bosses deliver on specific promises, what matters is what they end up getting, even if they were initially promised more.
Samantha Montes and David Zweig of the University of Toronto in Canada recruited students who were about to embark on four months of paid work experience. Before starting their placements, the students were asked to rate the pay and perks they had been offered. Three months into the job, nearly 400 students reported what inducements they had in fact received, and the extent to which promises had been broken.
Questionnaire results revealed that the participants鈥� level of dissatisfaction depended mainly on what they actually received, rather than any discrepancy with what had been offered (Journal of Applied Psychology, vol 94, p 1243).
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Montes hopes the results will encourage employers to concentrate on delivering good conditions and rewards, rather than promising workers next to nothing in the mistaken belief that delivering a little more than was offered will be appreciated.