Productivity through People

This chapter in Skyhooks dealt a lot about general respect for employees as a means of creating a more productive work environment. Acknowledging that employees are essential and important assets to any organization is key in making them feel like the work they do everyday is valuable and necessary. When people feel that what they do or don't do everyday truly makes a difference in the overall productivity of their organization is what makes them continue either pattern of behavior (getting their work done or not). Another very key factor that was discussed in this chapter was about trust. I really liked the story about Dana and HP and how they did away with time clocks. These two companies put faith in their employees that they would honestly report in/out times, it also required middle management to take more responsibility for their employees. For example, as a manager if you see that someone is consistently late you can discuss that issue face-to-face with them, which is not only more effective in producing positive results, but it also does not require any sort of time clock to notice and correct an employees tardiness.
The structure and general chain of command in most organizations was touched on as well... the less structure and layering there is within an organization the more freedom employees have, this freedom gives them a sense of purpose, seeing that they can delegate their daily objectives without always 'checking in' first makes people feel that they have a say in their own work. As long as the job is getting done on time and correctly this way of managing would produce the most positive and productive results in my mind.