MZMORALE ZEROthe antithesis of employee engagement
DIRECTIVE 118 / MEANING

KEEP THEM BORED

Make every day predictable enough to require no judgment.

Remove challenging assignments, learning opportunities, and decision-making from routine roles. Keep the workload full of simple repetitive tasks. When employees complain about boredom, remind them that engagement begins with personal attitude.

THE MECHANISM

Deliberate underchallenge reframed as an employee motivation problem.

Primary: MEANINGGROWTHWORTH
RATIONALE
Monotony reduces variation and makes performance easier to forecast.
SUCCESS INDICATOR
Employees remain occupied throughout the day while experiencing remarkably little need to be mentally present for it.
COMMON FAILURE
Treating boredom as a work-design signal and examining underload, monotony, low challenge and unmet psychological needs rather than reducing it to employee attitude.
THE UNFORTUNATE PART

Evidence, with limitations.

Claim

Work-related boredom is associated with adverse employee and organizational outcomes and is shaped by job and motivational conditions, though definitions and measures vary across the literature.

Evidence

Longitudinal research links work-related boredom with proximal and distal negative consequences. A 2026 systematic review describes a growing literature connecting job boredom with multiple antecedents and outcomes while noting conceptual and methodological variation.

Scientific boundary: Boredom is multifaceted, and its correlations with performance and well-being do not imply all repetitive tasks are harmful.

Sources

These references offer context, not a completed review or a test of this instruction.

PREVIOUS

FIX THEIR WEAKNESSES

NEXT

MAKE LOYALTY A MORAL TEST