According to HRO Today, Jay Whitehead writes “the first recorded act of employee motivation” was 2600 years ago, in 538 BC, by Cyrus the Great of Biblical fame from the book of Daniel. Before him were the kings Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, the latter of which came to a sticky end when the Medes and the Persians (Cyrus, in partnership with Darius), overtook Babylon.

Cyrus, as the new ruler, and wanting to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, used positive recognition in the form of a ceremony for the construction workers, consisting of a pat on the back, a well-deserved drink, and a coin bonus. This was a much better approach to take than what so many of the operations workers received throughout history for their back breaking labours (before unions and worker’s rights were established).

John Henry Patterson (1844–1922) – He gave his employees a toxic workplace culture – He was known for inflicting a tight control over employees with unorthodox methods, such as making them “follow his own fad diet regimes” and his sadistic practice of firing and then rehiring workers just to destroy their confidence. (See workhuman blog by Darcy Jacobsen.) But Patterson had nothing on those to follow...

Rulers by extension are bosses. They employ scores of people, whole villages and more. Let’s explore a few sovereigns and leaders known for their labour force ‘achievements’.

Some not so stellar examples of employers from the past...

▸ Qin Shi Huang (259–210 BCE) – Known for the Qin Terracotta Army and the Great Wall of China, he ruled through terror and inflexibility –he had an obsession with control, and after failing to censor scholars and free-thinkers by burning books, he had them buried alive. (That’ll shut them up.)

▸ Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar (reigned 1821–1861) – instead of taxes, the Malagasy people were forced to perform hard labour as and when she required it. Also, her half-witted scheme to build a road in front of her buffalo hunting party so they could travel in style has an estimated price tag of a 10,000-person death toll. She was said to have halved her country’s population during her reign. (Luckily, she only ruled for 40 years, otherwise who knows what she could have accomplished?)

▸ Ivan IV ‘the Terrible’ (reigned 1547–1584) – Although, the Night at the Museum movie franchise played him off as not so ‘terrible’, at the age of 13, he was reported to have had a noble eaten alive by dogs, and eventually forced millions of Russians into serfdom. He had a personal vendetta against the city of Novgorod, so he sacked it and massacred its citizens. He even killed his own son in a crime of passion. (Good one, Ivan!)

• King Leopold II of Belgium (reigned 1865–1909) – turned out to be 44 years too long. Basically, he set up the Congo Free State, a “model of liberty and prosperity” but it turned out to be a slave-hold state for Leopold’s personal gain as he raped the Congo’s natural resources. He used the mutilation of women and children as punishments for his workers if they didn’t meet their KPIs too.

▸ Murad IV, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire – You wouldn’t want to be under his employ. He had many an advisor and high-ranking military officers executed. He was fond of strangulation and impaling as methods of punishment. And worse, as if banning coffee and tobacco wasn’t bad enough on the workers, it was a capital offence to consume them. (My ‘No coffee, no workie’ desk sign wouldn’t have been a big hit then.) (See this Factinate blog for more info.)

Others, we can thank:

▸ Emperor Rudolf II (1576–1612) – for his leadership toward causing the 30 Years’ War

▸ A blanket thank-you to all the Roman Emperors, especially Commodus and Caligula, for their renowned cruelty, debauchery, and sadistic rule (power twins second to none)

▸ Tamerlane ‘the Great’, for his live skin peels, and his 100 towers of skulls made from 90,000 beheadings (he was a busy boy)

▸ And a special shout-out to Attila the Hun, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin.

The world didn’t appreciate the ‘genius’ behind negative reinforcement, especially once the workers’ rights movement took hold.

Thankfully, our current model of society and employment, at least in the developed world, affords us a more stable environment when it comes to the likelihood of our employers killing us thanklessly or not.

The modern-day idea of rewarding employees stems from psychoanalytic roots and behavioural psychology. Sigmund Freud is the craziest mind we must grapple with in this school of thought. And now, motivation is closely related to performance and reward instead of fear.

Another excerpt, from the Wiki article, defines ‘motivation’ as "the degree to which an individual wants and choose[s] to engage in certain specific behaviours", to which Vroom (quoted in Mitchell, 1982) “adds that performance = ability x motivation.”

Associated terminology

The term ‘workforce’ has several synonyms connected with the concept of the individual and the collective group: worker, labourer, toiler, staff and staffer, doer, working-class, ‘blue-collar’ and ‘white collar’, workingman, then also workingwoman, co-worker, employee, apprentice, intern, executive, boss, and the more equitable colleague and personnel.

Some slang terms are nine-to-fiver, serf, plebe, dogsbody, grunt, roughneck, grub, peon, drudger, probie, errand-boy, stooge, and pen/paper pusher. So why do some workplaces still treat their employees with a slave-driver mentality? And why is there still such a major imbalance in workplace cultures today? (One might also ask the hard question: why are there still known hard labour camps and ‘slavery’ present in some societies today?)

Consider ‘that old chestnut’ attitude of ‘Why should I have to thank my staff for doing their jobs when that is why they are here in the first place?’ This mentality needs to be eradicated swiftly from the organisation and management culture. It might sound like a shocking sentiment, but it is prevalent in the working world and equates to nothing less than a toxic culture.

We believe that the answer is simply in respect, reward, and recognition. The perfect triad approach to a sustainable, happy working environment.