Good use of positive encouragement

I’m pretty critical sometimes on my blog here about the various things that people do wrong. Tonight I want to mention something I think is a good idea.

Many apartment places threaten their residents during cleaning inspections. University Villa the last few months has found a positive way of encouraging residents to pass their monthly cleaning checks during the first inspection. Every month they do a drawing of people who passed their checks the first time, and 5 people win free pizzas. This is a great simple way of encouraging people to keep their apartments orderly. It is far better business to encourage people this way than by threatening them with punishments for failing to complete their cleaning assignments.

By the way, there are still negative consequences for not passing cleaning checks, but they aren’t the focus of the encouragement.