Performance-Related Pay (PRP) has become a growing trend in the last two decades in many organisations (Cadsby, Song & Tapon, 2007). The concept of performance-related pay was designed as a way to motivate employees and encourage desired behaviour due to individuals being different in terms of their own levels of motivation, drive and initiative. Organisations need to take this into account and set overall targets clear to individuals which are also in line with organisational goals to make sure incentive plans work effectively. Numerous researches have been conducted regarding the issue of the effectiveness of incentive plans. Some management experts suggested that incentives can be a powerful tool to motivate employees (Bennett, 1993) and Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory indicated that pay for performance provides a direct and explicit link between performance and outcome, which fixed salary compensation does not. However, Author Kohn (1998) contends that money does not motivate employees and is not a substitute for good management. The aim of this essay is to examine the benefits and the costs in implementing performance incentives.
The benefits of implementing incentive plans
Managers have to be familiar with how to use the power of incentives to drive for individual motivation and organisational effectiveness. It can be a highly efficient motivational tool and should be employed under the appropriate circumstances (Bennett, 1993). Most notably, performance-related pay plays an important role in economy downturn. Since companies generally have a smaller amount of capital to allocate for compensation during an economy slowdown, offering salary increases or bonuses in varying amounts to the best performers or the most esse...
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..., May-June, 38-40. [Response to Kohn]
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Vroom, V. H. (1964), Work and motivation. New York: Wiley.
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Mujtaba, B. G., & Shuaib, S. (2010). An Equitable Total Rewards Approach to Pay for Performance Management. Journal of Management Policy and Practice vol. II (4), 111-121.
Noe, Raymond A., et al. Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2010. Print.
Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2014). Fundamentals of human resource management (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
When employees were asked, what factors could be changed at USAA to help maintain employee motivation levels, a couple of them answered with, “higher wages” and “more money”. This response corroborates other studies regarding pay which state surveys will more likely under emphasize the importance of pay relative to other motivational factors. (Rynes, Gerhart & Minette, 2004). “Financial incentives had by far the largest effect on productivity of all interventions. For example, pay was four times more effective than interventions designed to make work more interesting.” (Rynes, 2004). One reason for this phenomenon is social desirable responding. It should be noted, that although pay may be under reported, the results indicate other factors are also important for employee
The company Steel Co, which has been established for around 30 years, has been in a steady decline during the current recession and although a Divisional Director has been employed by the owner the fortunes of the company have not improved. The staff is unhappy, unproductive and unimpressed by the Human Resource system that currently exists in the company. The pay structure that currently exists within the organisation has been much debated among employees who feel it is unsatisfactory. The Business Adviser will research Performance and Reward management tools in order to help the company develop a more suitable Performance and Reward system to use. A variety of sources will be used in order to evaluate the system and tools against other organisational frameworks. The pay structure within the company will also be looked at in order to identify any possible changes that could be made.
Many of Harrah’s employees deemed the goals set by Winn’s current incentive program to be unrealistic; on the other hand, others felt a sense of entitlement for bonuses. Therefore, Winn’s job is to provide a recommendation to Gary Loveman, on how to motivate and get employees energized. In order to motivate the employees, Winn had implemented an incentive pay plan to rewards Harrah’s employees in all of its properties for improving customer service. The company’s purpose for incentive program was to implant a competitive mindset in its employees as well as to show the employees that they are core of the...
Fisher, C., Schoefeldt, L., & Shaw, J. (1996). Human resource management. (3rd Edition). Princeton, NJ: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Reward Management (RM) has been defined as the distribution of monetary and non-monetary rewards to employees in an effort to align the interests of the employees, the organisation, and its shareholders (O’Neil, 1998). In addition O’Neil (1998) also suggests that a RM system can serve the purpose of attracting prospective job applicants, retaining valuable employees, motivating employees, ensuring legal requirements relating to direct and indirect rewards are not violated, assisting the company in achieving human resource and business objectives, and ultimately assisting the organisation in obtaining a competitive advantage.
Torrington, D. Hall, L. & Taylor, S. (2005) Human Resource Management. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall
Incentive reward engagement offers a win-win situation for the employees and the company. Kelleher believes that incentive is a form of recognition and builds engagement through company’s and employee’s obligations towards a common goal (2014). The company has a “Growth Incentive Scheme” for the production workers. Special monetary incentives are provided should the workers achieve the monthly output target. Through the rewards, employees feel motivated towards their work and thus, contribute towards the company’s
Research has shown that motivation in an employee is an important factor which determines his performance. Motivation is the “driving force within individuals” (Mullins, 2007, p. 285). It is the concerned with finding out the reasons which shape and direct the behaviour of the individuals. The people act to achieve something so that they can satisfy some needs (Gitman and Daniel, 2008). It is important for the manager to understand this motivation of individual employees in order to inspire them and devise an appropriate set of incentives and rewards which would satisfy the needs that they have individually (Kerr, 2003). Once these needs are expected to be met in return for some specific behaviour or action, they would work more diligently to have that behaviour in them and to achieve that objective (Meyer and Hersovitch, 2001). Since it would lead to early and fuller achievement of the company objectives as the individual would work more diligently, it would lead to better organizational performance (Wiley, 1997).
Management spends a huge amount of time to design incentive systems and schemes to motivate their workers and to ensure they work in their best possible manner. Motivating workers by giving them decent pay helps in winning employees heart to make the work done efficiently, significantly and effectively. The most effective way to motivate people to work productively is through individual incentive compensation (Pfeffer, 1998). An attraction of getting more is a powerful incentive to people for high performance. While most people agree that money plays a major role in motivating people, in organizations there is a widespread belief that money may also have some undesirable effects on morale.
Torrington, D., Hall, L. and Taylor, S. (2008). Human Resource Management, 7th ed. Prentice Hall.
Noe, Raymond A., John R. Hollenbeck, Barry Gerhart, and Patrick M. Wright. Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage. 7th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2010. Print.