GMAT Essays (AWA)

"Studies have found that employees of not-for-profit organizations and charities are often more highly motivated than employees of for-profit corporations to perform well at work when their performance is not being monitored or evaluated. Interviews with employees of not-for-profit organizations suggest that the reason for their greater motivation is the belief that their work helps to improve society. Because they believe in the importance of their work, they have personal reasons to perform well, even when no financial reward is present. Thus, if our corporation began donating a significant portion of its profits to humanitarian causes, our employees' motivation and productivity would increase substantially and our overall profits would increase as well."

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion

The argument of the HR Director states that if the company begins donating a significant amount of its profits to humanitarian causes, employees' motivation and productivity would increase, as would the profits of the company. The argument of the HR Director is flawed. The argument assumes that all employees are motivated by charity, which may not be the case. Furthermore, the HR Director assumes that because employees are motivated by charity in general, donations to humanitarian causes will be a motivating factor. If these assumptions were to hold through, then the productivity and motivation of employees should increase. Would this lead to increased profits? This is not clear. An increase in productivity would likely only lead to increased profits if the company has capacity issues.

The HR Director outlines the findings of studies that employees of not-for-profit organisations and charities tend to be more motivated than their counterparts working for profit making enterprises, as they have a belief in their work being helpful to society, they have personal reasons to perform well. These employees clearly have a strong belief in charity and have been drawn to careers working for such organisations, not for financial gain but to assist with causes they believe in. Employees working for profit-making enterprises may have chosen their careers for financial and personal career development reasons. These employees may not be as strongly motivated by charitable causes, otherwise they likely would have sought employment with such organisations. Therefore, if a profit-making organization increases its donations to charity, this may not motivate staff and give them personal reasons to perform as much as it would for individuals who have actively chosen a career with a charitable organization.

The Director also mentions the organisation donating to "humanitarian causes", which suggests that it will be the company and not the employees choosing the causes to benefit from the donations. When a person chooses to go work for a specific charity, they are obviously choosing a cause they believe in. It is possible that not all employees of the company will believe in the importance of the humanitarian causes chosen by the company and some employees may not be fully motivated by these causes. If this were the case, then it is unlikely such employees would increase productivity as a result of such donations.

Even if the donations by the company did lead to increased productivity, this would only lead to higher profits if the organization has capacity issues. If there is spare capacity in the company, then a higher rate of productivity would be unlikely to yield higher profits.

The Director has omitted important information in his/her analysis of the issue. If information were available as to how productivity of employees working in the for-profit sector was influenced by charitable donations by their employers, this would help evaluate the potential benefits of the company donating to humanitarian causes. In evaluating the claims by the HR Director, it would also be useful to know whether there are any capacity issues within the organization to assess whether increased productivity would indeed lead to increased profits. Furthermore, it should be assessed whether the employees feel that humanitarian issues are important to them. It may well be the case that the claims of the HR Director would be proven true if the company implemented the suggested policy, however, as it stands, the argument is flawed for the reasons indicated above and it is not possible to fully assess such claims.