Corporate "Team Building" and Sales Force Motivation in Germany

I've just returned from the ASTD International Conference and Expo where Human Resources executives and training professionals from around the world gather to discuss the latest ideas,techniques and products for optimizing workforce effectiveness and maximizing profitability. One technique that was not featured at the conference was the employee incentive program practiced in Germany known as "sex for performance": 

A German insurance company rewarded its 100 best reps by organsing an outdoor orgy at a spa with 20 high class prostitutes.

Organisers even dished out colour coded wrist bands to indicate which services partygoers could enjoy.

The ‘incentive’ trip for the sales reps at Hamburg Mannheimer took place in Budapest in June 2007 and has only just been revealed in the pages of German business bible Handelsblatt.

The company provided extra rewards for those sales reps that exceeded their quota (as well as for the senior execs, naturally):

The ladies wore red and yellow wrist bands. One group were there as hostesses, and the others were to fulfill any and every desire,' said another salesman.

'There were also ladies with white wrist bands. They were reserved for the board and the very best salesmen.'

Unfortunately, the details concerning the special attributes of the "ladies with white wrist bands" were not provided.

So is Hamburg Mannheimer just exceptionally innovative in designing and implementing its employee incentive program?  Evidently, this is a common practice in corporate Germany: 

Schirow says corporate bashes with prostitutes are commonplace. "Many large firms have an extra budget to fund such parties in such a way that they don't show up in the official accounts," she says. "These days you've got to motivate your staff."

If a company doesn't have money to send its staff on a foreign trip, it might will send them to a brothel or nightclub instead.

"For me, this incident at Hamburg-Mannheimer is totally normal," says Schirow. "The insurance business in particular likes to party and reward its staff with female accompaniment. The only thing that surprised me was the scale of it."

But such illicit parties serve an additional purpose beyond motivation. "One shares a secret and a secret experience, that welds people together and makes them beholden to the company," says Monique.

In addition, it gives men self-confidence. "For the pure sense of pleasure, a man doesn't need a prostitute for sex, he can relieve himself," says Schirow. "It's about the appreciation he feels when a woman shows she likes being with him, that he makes her happy."

But count me as skeptical.  I've been around executive teams and sales reps long enough to know that - while sex is fine and dandy - money is the true motivator, much better than sex.  These firms would get a better return on investment by redistributing the money spent on high-class prostitutes to performance bonuses.

Comments

[Hattie]

How much of this serves to keep women from reaching the top in the corporate world. If it's fun and games for the guys they are not going to want women around that they aren't using for sex purposes.
I know it's common. A German man in his cups told me once about an outing in Iran that his company ( a highly respected one, too)arranged in a brothel, where he had sex with a twelve year old girl.
In other words it's even nastier than this piece would indicate and yes, it is about sex.

[John in Michigan, USA]

I dunno, I can imagine plenty of people who would much, much rather enjoy something illicit, particularly in a group setting, rather than simply getting cash (even if the cash was much more than enough to arrange the same thing privately and individually). The group bonding, and group absolution of guilt, is a powerful factor.

This is a problem on Wall St. as well.

I'm actually all in favor of legalized prostitution. The part I haven't figured out is, when it is combined with business, it is difficult to see how to be fair to female colleagues if the men are enjoying this sort of incentive.

Perhaps to balance things out, the men should be expected to occasionally attend some form of entertainment that the women would enjoy.

[Strahler 70]

Prostitution is the ugliest degradation of women possible. The legalization creates a grey zone of business occupied by organized crime, motorcycle gangs etc... It is also a major reason for the spread of AIDS, especially in the third world. It should be prohibited and outlawed.

[David]

But criminalization of prostitution does nothing to stop it, and, as we see here in the US, only hurts the security and well-being of the women.

[Brandon]

Prosecute the pimps, not the prostitutes.

[Hattie]

Well. I am glad I'm not a prostitute, that my daughters aren't prostitutes, that my granddaughters are not child prostitutes.
I know it all has its glamor, but it's repulsive.

[David]

Just to add insult to injury, the Hamburg-Mannheimer insurance group took the entire cost of the orgy as a tax write-off.

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20110530-35349.html

[Team building activities sydney]

Sounds like an excellent idea to me! haha. In all seriousness though i can see the commotion surrounding this and the ethical boundaries that it's breaking

[corporate team building program]

Due to the environment the focus of attention is on the training need and the participants are able to concentrate on the Team Building Activities.