GMAT Essays (AWA)

AWA ESSAYS: Analyze Argument
ESSAY QUESTION:1
The following appeared in an article in a human resources magazine:
"Six months ago, in an experiment aimed at boosting worker productivity, Company Z started providing free gourmet lunches to its employees. The Company hoped that these office lunches would encourage employees to remain in the building during lunch-hour and motivate employees to work harder throughout the day. A survey found that soon after the lunch program was implemented, the average number of hours worked by most Company Z employees increased dramatically. During this same period, the Company's profits also increased substantially. Thus, it is safe to say that the lunch program was a huge success and that Company Z should make the program permanent."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.

YOUR RESPONSE:
Although the argument that implementation of free gourmet lunch has resulted in the increase of worker productivity sounds convincing at first look but has many flaws.

First of all, the argument does not provide any kind of reasoning as to how free gourmet lunch can motivate employees to work harder. The motivation to work hard comes from the rewards and incentives one get from his work and not necessarily through the incentives given to all the employees.

The assumption that increase in number of hours worked is because employees remain in office building during lunch-hour is flawed. For example, the employees might be spending more time gossiping and chatting with their colleagues present in the vicinity during the lunch time, which otherwise would not be possible, had they been going out for lunch. Thus the increase in number of hours does not reflect the increase in number of working hours.

Also the survey which corroborated that average number of hours worked by most employees has increased might itself be flawed. It does not mention the size of the survey sample, which could be too small to make a generalization out of it. Apart from the size of the sample, the results of the survey might not be representative of the overall company figure.

Since the affect of increased worker productivity should at least take few months to reflect, it seems more of a co-incidence that company profits increased dramatically during the same period as the lunch program was implemented.

Due to the above mentioned reasons, it is clear that argument contains many flaws and incorrectly assumes the correlation to be a Cause - Effect. Unless the explanation of these loopholes in the argument is given, the claim made in the argument cannot be properly substantiated.