Show Me The Dough: Pizza Makes Workers More Productive

The promise of pizza makes workers more productive, a study has revealed.

Staff will work harder if they are rewarded with a slice of pizza, which works better as an incentive than a compliment or even extra money.

That is the claim of a new book called Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations, written by Dan Ariely.

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He carried out an experiment with workers at an Intel factory in Israel to see what motivated them.

Each morning for a week, staff were promised three different rewards if they completed their daily workload: a cash bonus of about £20; a thank you from their boss or a voucher for a free pizza.

Another group didn’t receive an email with an incentive.

On the first day of the study, pizza was the prime motivator, with productivity levels 6.7% higher than the control group who didn’t receive an email.

The promise of a compliment increased output by 6.6%, while the cash bonus led to a 4.9% increase.

However, over the course of the week, compliments ended up the overall winner, closely followed by pizza, while the cash bonus made workers 6.5% less productive than the control group, offering proof that money doesn’t mean everything to employees.