I'm glad to see the Economist raise this subject. I've known so many people who hate their jobs, it really does seem like it should be higher up on the political agenda than it is.

This article brings up two particularly interesting points for me.

Firstly, do performance measures increase productivity? Apparently, they actually decrease productivity, at least if productivity involves creative problem-solving: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Secondly, can standard corporations genuinely recognize and implement the 'human side' of management, as the article says they should. I would argue not. The standard corporation is owned by a large number of shareholders with no personal connection to the corporation and no interest in anything other than profiting from their shares. Because of this arrangement, it is inevitable that profit is the only value that counts in corporate management. If management adopts a 'touchy-feely' approach it can only be justified if this is found to increase profits, and it would do nothing to prevent their being discarded as soon as it becomes profitable to do so. A genuine recognition of the 'human side' of management would be a recognition that humans are ends in themselves, not means to an end. But in a standard corporate structure, employees are inevitably just cogs in a profit-making machine.