Preview

The Effectiveness of Monetary Incentives on Job Performance Essay Example

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2997 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Effectiveness of Monetary Incentives on Job Performance Essay Example
Introduction

Nowadays, business environments have become increasingly dynamic and competitive. Due to globalisation and technological change, many companies today are trying to identify innovative compensation strategies that are directly linked to improving organizational performance as well as to make the companies become more flexible and adaptive. According to Appelbaum and Mackenzie (1996), the fundamentals of incentive pay and how it associates with known organizational behaviour theories can be correlated with the achievement of company goals through the use of reward system.

Basically, employees work because of money and they desire to receive fair wages and salaries for their contributions. Whereas employers want their workers to feel that is what they are getting and at the same time wish to maximize firm value. Hence, it is rational that employees and employers perceive money as the basic incentive for satisfactory job performance.
Campling, Poole, Wiesner and Schermerhorn (2006) suggest that the use of monetary incentives in the classic ‘work performance paradigm’ is based mainly on the ‘Reinforcement Theory.’ Under this theory, managers must concentrate on the relationship between target behaviour (job performance) and its consequences (pay), as well as emphasized on the principles and techniques of organizational behaviour modification. Campling et al. (2006, p.398) define organizational behaviour modification as ‘the application of operant conditioning to influence human behaviour at work.’

According to Ballentine, McKenzie, Wysocki and Kepner (2003), monetary incentives include salary increases, profit sharing plans, stock options, warrants, individual and small-group rewards, merit pay, project bonuses, and additional paid vacation time. The purpose of such incentives is to reward employees for outstanding job performance through money.
However, the effectiveness of monetary incentives on job performance has

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Best Essays

    A company’s fundamental purpose and objective of compensation is to provide adequate and equitable rewards to employees at a level that matches theirs skills, abilities and contributions to the company (DeNisi, Angelo S., Griffin, Ricky W., 2008, p. 284. Para. 1). Compensation is the human resource management function that deals with every type of reward that individuals receive in return for performing work – including financial and nonfinancial rewards. Financial rewards include direct payments (e.g. salary) plus indirect payments in the form of employee benefits. Nonfinancial rewards include everything in a work environment that enhances a worker’s sense of self-respect and esteem by others (Cascio, 2006, p.418, Para. 1).…

    • 1391 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Answer: The various incentives that should be included here are gain sharing and profit sharing incentives. The other incentives can be like cash rewards, percentage increase in base pay, and other non-cash prizes.…

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In this article compensation experts Jay Schuster and Pat Zingheim discuss how businesses can tie incentive pay, specifically variable pay, to business objectives. The experts provide four key questions that companies must ask and answer before implementing an incentive pay program. The article also advises companies on how to specifically link goals to incentive pay and explains reasons why organizations should adopt incentive pay programs.…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Organizations that has the drive to flourish in a market that is very competitive must have a compensation plan that is well designed and inspires its employees, has benefit programs, guarantees equity, and handles compensation costs. These plans should mirror the culture of its employees. Organizations have numerous of options when designing a compensation plan comes into play, and must consider how the options they have chosen will be suitable for their strategy for engaging and keeping their employees. This paper will identify a total compensation plan for an organization, identify the internal and external equity advantages and disadvantages, and provide and explanation on how each plan supports the total compensation objective and the relationship to its financial situation.…

    • 1068 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    It is generally used in companies where the performance is measurable. It is compensation that rewards results rather than time spent on a job. It is a method adopted by employers to motivate employees to perform better and continue delivering good results, which directly leads to the success of the company. I believe that structured monetary incentives are truly effort inducing. Incentive pay motivates employees and maintains high work performance.…

    • 1133 Words
    • 41 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Costco Pay and Benefit

    • 970 Words
    • 4 Pages

    There are five major components of job satisfaction, one being monetary benefits (Ghillyer 2010). According to Ghillyer (2012) an employee’s behavior towards their pay may affect their work performance. The issue that arises with employee motivation is that management is unable to satisfy all (Ghillyer 2010). This becomes an even larger problem when employees being joining unions, resigning and being frequently absent (Ghillyer 2010).…

    • 970 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Employee Satisfaction

    • 433 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Long-established rewards systems usually have had a large proportion of the total package as base pay and just a small portion tied to performance. In today’s world new and more strategic rewards systems, have come to be implemented which are more aligned with overall organizational strategies. These new rewards include a performance based variable pay, skill base pay and recognition pay. In researching this new trend it has been shown to have a very positive effect on employee productivity and firm performance.…

    • 433 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Incentive compensation has been one of the most actively studied topics in economics, accounting and management research in the past two decades. Designing an effective incentive plan will always require judgment and understanding of individual circumstances. Motivating employees is key to positive performance. If an employee feels bored, not challenged and not stimulated, their performance inevitably suffers. A well-run incentive program can help make an organization more effective and attractive by encouraging and rewarding an organization 's most important resource, heir employees. By providing incentives that are meaningful and appropriate, an organization is supporting these people and showing them that the company recognizes just how valuable they are. To foster the implementation of new practices or practices to stimulate positive output amongst staff, incentive compensation is widely used as a viable motivator. Incentives are necessary to improve morale amongst employees and a supervisory accolade has been proven to go along way. Incentives increase the productivity and if it is understood that increased productivity gets fairly rewarded, then people will do their best to be productive and to remain with the organization. Tasks that are rewarded get completed which is pretty much a blanket philosophy.…

    • 634 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Fair Day's Work

    • 681 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Our economic system is predicated on the belief that those who work hard and apply themselves will be rewarded for their labor by a fair day’s pay. This foundational transaction is often at the core of companies’ belief that to keep employees going, a wage will suffice as a motivator for performance and performance improvement. Studies have however shown that this is rarely the case. Yes, it is true that a wage is the default motivator because money is measurable and fungible, but at best it is only a secondary motivator.…

    • 681 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Discussion Question

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Two widely usedmanagement incentive plans are merit pay and profit sharing plans. Merit pay is any salaryincrease that is awarded to an employee on his or her individual performance. Advocatesargue that only pay tied directly to performance can motivate improved performance. Profitsharing plans distribute a portion of the company 's profits to employees in the form of abonus. Research shows that benefits are more subtle than increased productivity—possiblyin the form of better worker commitment. There are additional management incentive plansstudents might cover, including long-term incentives such as capital accumulation plans,various alternative stock plans, and performance plans. (Pages 443-449)…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Psychology and Motivation

    • 1570 Words
    • 7 Pages

    This essay examines the topic on ‘psychology and motivation’, where money has long been considered the most effective motivator of staff. Therefore, three specific management theories would be used in this paper to evaluate the use of monetary incentives in employee motivation. Motivation is purely a simple active process of leadership behavior. It creates conditions which drives an individual to do things right. Motivation is a built-in response in an individual and it appears within an individual instead of establishing from the outside (Baldoni, 2005).…

    • 1570 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Pay for Performance

    • 1342 Words
    • 5 Pages

    According to Moriones, et al., (2013), Incentive pay is usually used to obtain specific performance results and companies that have made the transition from “Salary” to “Individual incentives”, have proven to have increased productivity as much as 44 percent. This increase has shown that by directly linking pay for performance motivates and aids the recruiting and the retention of the most talented and qualified employees.…

    • 1342 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Reward Management

    • 2828 Words
    • 12 Pages

    This results in many different forms of reward for the individual. It can be a cash lump sum, which leads to incentives such as bonus schemes, profit sharing, and share ownership. Then there is a consolidated increase to the basic rate of pay. This can be an incentive which aims to motivate the employee to achieve their objective and improve their performance, or it can be a reward, which provides recognition to the employee for their achievement.…

    • 2828 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The purpose of this paper is to attempt to asses how companies can use pay linked to performance to increase organisational effectiveness. This paper will consider different examples of how companies can utilize pay correlated to performance to increase organisational effectiveness. This paper will identify the different factors that an organisation uses linked to pay, including organisations reward systems for attitudes and behaviours of individual employees which is linked to the effectiveness of an organisation. This paper will also consider what the organisation is setting out to do to enhance on individual performance and how organisations control there workforce.…

    • 1474 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are four main types of direct financial rewards, which are, basic pay, which is salary or wages given to the employee upon doing their job or service done. Secondly is the incentive pay, where the employee is paid for a specific job or task performed to meet the company’s objectives. This allows the employees to increase their job performance and it also motivates them to do better in the future. Furthermore, there are also stock options, which allow an employee after a certain time to buy and own part of the company, as a gesture of a job well done. This is a productive benefit because, since they own part of the company now, they feel obligated to help improve the company. Last but not least is the bonuses given. Bonuses are a sign of good faith given by the employer to the employee as a sign of job well done or for certain or special occasions.…

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays