Chapter 6 Flashcards
1
Q
State how money is used in organisations, the features of money and how money affects performance and why.
(1, 2-2, 3)
A
- Money and other financial rewards represent a form of exchange; employees provide their labor, skill, and knowledge in return for money and other benefits from the organisation.
- Other features of money:
- Relates to our needs and self-concept
- Symbol of achievement and status
- People who earn more tend to have higher job performance because higher pay enhances their self-concept evaluation .
2
Q
State the advantages and disadvantages of membership- and seniority-based rewards.
(3)
A
- Membership- and seniority-based rewards potentially reduce turnover and attract job applicants.
- Does not motivate job performance directly and may discourage poor performers from seeking work better suited to their abilities.
- “Golden handcuffs” that potentially weaken job performance because they generate continuance rather than affective commitment.
3
Q
Define job evaluation, how it affects pay and state the advantages and disadvantages of job status-based rewards.
(4)
A
- Job evaluation refers to systematically rating the worth of jobs by measuring the required skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions.
* The higher the assigned worth of a job, the higher the minimum and maximum pay. - Job status-based rewards improve feelings of fairness by distributing more pay to people in higher-valued jobs and motivates employees to compete for promotions.
- Some employees may prefer a more egalitarian workplace
- May motivate employees to compete for higher-status jobs by exaggerating their current job duties and hoarding resources.
4
Q
Define competency-based rewards, skill-based pay plans and their advantages and disadvantages.
(4)
A
- Competency -based rewards: employees progress through the pay range within their job group based on how well they demonstrate a list of competencies relevant to their job.
* Rewards skills, knowledge and competencies that lead to superior performance. - Skill-based pay plans: people receive higher pay determined by their mastery of measurable skills.
- Competency-based rewards motivate employees to learn new skills. This supports a more flexible workforce, increasing employee creativity, and alllowing employees to be more adaptive to embracing new practices in a dynamic environmnent.
- Because competency definitions are abstract, it is hard to fairly award pay increases. (skill-based systems measure specific skill and are more objective)
5
Q
Define individual rewards, team rewards, gainsharing plan and its benefits.
(1, 2-3)
A
- Individual rewards are given to employees for accomplishing a specifc task or exceeding annual performance goals.
- Team rewards are given to teams based on their performance.
- Gainsharing plan: team-based reward that calculates bonuses from the work unit’s cost savings and productivity improvement.
- Gainsharing plans tend to improve team dynamics, knowledge sharing, and pay satisfaction.
- They create a reasonably strong link between effort and performance because cost reduction and labor efficiency are within the team’s control.
6
Q
Define organisational-level rewards, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), stock options and profit sharing plans.
A
- Organisational-level rewards are given to employees based on the organisations performance.
- Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) are organisational rewards where employees buy company stock at a discounted price.
* They benefit from dividends and market appreciation of the stock. - Stock options give employees the right to purchase company stock at a preetermined price up to a fixed expiration date.
* Motivates employees to make the company more profitable, raising the company’s stock price and thus profiting from the value above the price of the option. - Profit sharing plans are when employees receive a percentage of the previous year’s company profits.
7
Q
State the advantages and distadvantages of ESOPs, stock options and profit sharing.
A
- ESOPs and stock options create an ownership culture in which employees feel aligned with the organisation’s success. (But weak effect on performance)
* Employees perceive a weak connection between their individual effort and the determinants of the rewards: low P-to-O expectancy. (many factors like market condition and competition are beyond employee’s immediate control) - Profit sharing creates less of an ownership culture but has a stronger benefit on productivity.
* Also automatically adjusts employee’s compensation with the firm’s prosperity, reducing the need for layoffs or pay reductions during recession.
8
Q
State and describe 5 ways to increase performance reward effectiveness.
(5)
A
Reward effectiveness can be improved by:
- Linking rewards to performance
- When subjective measures of performance are necessary, companies should rely on multiple sources of information.
- Companies should apply rewards soon after performance occurs and in a large-enough dose (bonus vs pay raise).
- Ensure rewards are relevant
* Employees should be rewarded for things within their control so they see a clear link between their actions and their rewards. - Team rewards for interdependent jobs
- Team rewards are better than individual rewards when work is highly dependent because it is hard to measure individual performance in these situations.
- Encourages cooperation
- However, employees (particularly productive ones) and many other low-collectivism cultures prefer rewards based on indvidual performance.
- Ensure rewards are valued
* Ask employees what they value or what woud make a good reward - Beware of unintended consequences
9
Q
Define job design, job, job specialisation( and state its advantages) and scientific management.
(1, 2-4, 3-2)
A
- Job design is the process of assigning tasks to a job, including the interdepedency of those tasks with other jobs.
* A job is set of tasks performed by one person. - Job specialisation; when the work required to provide a product is subdivided into separate jobs assigned to different people. Improves efficiency because
- It is faster to master one skill
- Less time switching between tasks
- More practice because cycle times are shorter
- Specific aptitudes can be matched to jobs that suit them
- Scientific management is the practice of systematically partitioning work into its smallest elements and standardizing tasks to achieve maximum efficiency.
- Toolkit of activities like employee selection, training, goal setting and work incentives.
- Associated with high levels of job specialisation and standardization to achieve maximum efficiency.
10
Q
State 2 problems with high job specialisation.
A
- Job specialisation with very short cycle times have high employee turnover and absenteeism.
* Companies have to pay higher wages to attract job applicants to dissatisfying, narrowly defined work. - In repetitive jobs, the positive effect of higher proficiency is easily offset by the negative effect of compacency caused by tedious work patterns.
11
Q
Define the job characteristics model.
A
- A job design model that relates the motivational properties of jobs to specific personal and organisational consequences.
- 5 core job dimensions produce 3 psychological states that result in higher levels of internal work motivation, job satisfaction and work effectiveness.
12
Q
List and describe the 5 core job characteristics of the job characteristics model.
A
- Skill variety: the use of different skills and talents to complete a variety of work activities
- Task identity: the degree to which a job requires completion of a whole or identifiable piece of work, such as assembling an entire broadband modem rather than just soldering in the circuity.
- Task significance: degree to which the job affects the organisation or larger society.
- Autonomy: Jobs with high levels of autonomy provide freedom and independence in scheduling and determining the procedures to be used to complete the work.
- Job feedback is the degree to which employees can tell how well they are performing from direct sensory information from the job itself.
13
Q
List the 3 psychological states of the job characteristic model and what core job characteristics contribute to them.
(3)
A
- Experienced meaningfulness is the belief that one’s work is worthwhile or important.
* Affected by skill variety, task identity and task significance. - Experienced responsibility is the sense of being personally accountable for the work outcomes.
* Affected by autonomy. - Knowledge of results is an awareness of the work outcomes based on information from the job itself.
* Affected by job feedback.
14
Q
Explain how the job characteristic model is affected by individual characteristics and overlooks social and information processing aspects of a job.
(1-1, 2-3, 3-2)
A
- For employees to be motivated by the 5 core job characteristics, they must first be satisfied with their work context (working conditions, job security) and have a high growth need strength.
* Growth need strength is the invidividual’s need for personal growth. - The job characteristic model overlooks the social characteristics of a job like:
- The extent to which jobs require employees to interact
- Task interdependence: the extent that employees need to cooperate.
- The importance of social feedback in providing job motivation
- It also overlooks the information processing demands of the job.
- How predictable job duties are from day to day.
- High task variability means that employees perform different types of tasks each day and can’t predict them.
- Task analyzability refers to how much the job can be performed from known procedures and rules.
15
Q
Explain how job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment increase the motivational potential of the job.
(1-2, 2-2, 3-4)
A
Job design practices that increase motivational potentional of the job:
- Job Rotation
- Increases skill variety: improves employee motivation and satisfaction to some extent.
- Supports multiskilling which increases workforce flexibility in staffing the production process and finding replacements for employees on vacation.
- Job Enlargement
- Adding task to an existing job or combining 2 jobs to increase skill variety.
- Improves work efficiency and flexbility but only improves motivation, performance and job satisfaction when it is combined with more autonomy and job knowledge.
- Job enrichment occurs when employees are given more responsibility for scheduling, coordinating, and planning their own work.
- Higher job satisfaction and work motivation with lower absenteeism and turn over.
- Improves job and service quality because employee’s feel greater responsibliity and sense of ownership over their work.
- Job enrichment can be increased through natural grouping, where highly interdepedent tasks are integrated into one job.
- Increases task identity and task significance
- Establishing client relationships involves putting employees directly in contact with the client, creating direct responsibility and improving information communication.
16
Q
Define empowerment and list and explain its 4 components.
A
- Empowerment is a psychological concept in which people experience more self-determination, meaning, competence and the impact of the individual’s role in the organization.
- Self-determination: Empowered employees feel that they have more discretion over their work activities
- Meaning: Employees who feel empowered care about their work and believe that what they do is important
- Competence: Empowered people are confident about their ability to perform the work well and have a capacity to grow with new challenges.
- Impact: Empowered employees view themselves as active participants in the organisation where their decisions and actions can impact the company’s success
17
Q
List 5 factors that support empowerment.
A
- High degree of autononomy and minimal bureaucratic control
- High levels of task identity and task significance
- Jobs which allow for feedback about performance and accomplishments.
- Organisations in which information and other resources are easily available
- Organisations that are committed to employee learning through formal training programs and learning orientation culture.
18
Q
Define self-leadership and 4 features of self-leaderships.
A
- Self-leadership is the specific cognitive and behavioral strategies to achieve personal goals through self-direction and self-motivation.
- Personal goal setting
- Goals which are self-determined rather than assigned by supervisor.
- Employees are more motivated and perform better when they set their own goals.
- Requires a high degree of self-awareness to understand their current behavior and performance and set meaningful goals for personal development.
- Constructive Thought Strategies
- Self-talk refers to any situation in which we talk to ourselves about our own thoughts or actions and most self-talk is negative.
- Positive self-talk creates a can-do atitudes and increases our self-efficacy and reduces anxiety about tasks, thereby increasing motivation.
- Mental imagery refers to mentally practicing the task, anticipating obstacles to goal accomplishment, and working out solutions to those obstacles before they occur.
- This visualisation increases goal commitment and motivates people to complete the task effectively
- Designing natural rewards
* Self-leaders alter tasks and work relationships to make the work more motivating. - Self-reinforcement
* Self-reinforcement occurs whenever an employee has control over a reinforcer but doesn’t take the reinforcer until completing a self-set goal.
19
Q
List 3 predictors of self-leadership (personal and social).
A
- Self-leadership is more frequently found in people with higher levels of conscientiousness and extroversion.
- People with a positive self-concept evaluation (i.e self-esteem, self-efficacy and internal locus of control) are more likely to apply self-leadership strategies.
- Employees require some degree of autonomy to engage in most aspects of self-leadership.
