McDonald's workers: 'supersize my check'

[Oberon]

To be fair, a quick overview of Herzberg on wiki gives me:

The idea is that hygiene factors will not motivate, but if they are not there, they can lower motivation. These factors could be anything from clean toilets and comfortable chairs, to a reasonable level of pay and job security.

I think the last two is all that anyone can ask for really, a reasonable level of pay and job security. The quibbling factor comes down to what is a reasonable level of pay, which in my opinion would depend upon the cost of living in any particular area. The higher the cost of living, the higher the wage should be, so that people aren't forced to work two or three jobs in order to make ends meet. As an employer, you want your staff to give you their 100%, and if that person is torn between three jobs, you'll be lucky to get 33.3r% out of them. So it's in the employers best interest to match a living wage, and it's in societies best interests too, but anything that involves pushing prices up (even if wages go up too, to match) makes people shy away.


EDIT: Of course, I realise now having typed all that out, you probably mean about the likelihood of a wage rise raising productivity. In which case I think that in the long term, Herzberg has a fair point, but I'd wager that there would be a short term boost as morale briefly improves, but it takes more than wages to fix morale problems in many jobs.

EDIT EDIT: Just reading briefly through the Two-factor theory, can't say I disagree with it, I think that wages cross the line from Hygiene to Motivation in a couple of instances, such as for something like performance related pay or bonuses, but mostly it is through recognition and achievement that satisfaction is primarily earned.