Motivation in Practice Flashcards
Variable Pay (Incentive Compensation)
Providing employees some portion of their pay based on a measure of performance
Many organizations use these kinds of programs
Some evidence that can cause increased mental health issues
Piece-Rate
Individual workers paid a certain sum of money for each unit of production they complete
Variation: workers paid a basic hourly wage and paid a piece rate differential on top of hourly wage
Wage Incentive Plans
Schemes linking pay to performance on production jobs
Production Job Pay Incentives
Piece rate
Wage incentive plans
Usually lead to increased productivity
Problems With Wage Incentives
Lowered quality
Differential opportunities
Reduced cooperation
Incompatible job designs
Restriction of productivity
White Collar Pay Incentives
Fewer objective performance criteria
Employed more frequently than wage incentive plans
Often used to attract and retain employees instead of increasing wages
Merit pay plans
Merit Pay Plans
Managers required to evaluate performance of employees on rating scale or written description
Use evaluations to recommend a certain amount of merit pay
Problems With Merit Pay
Low discrimination between workers
Small increases (combatted by lump sum bonuses)
Pay secrecy between employees
Ways To Use Pay To Motivate Teamwork
Profit sharing
Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)
Gainsharing
Skill-based pay
Profit Sharing
If firm makes a profit some of it is returned to employees
Unlikely that profit sharing is motivational (difficult to see effects of own actions on organization)
Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP)
Allow employees to own set amount of company’s shares purchased at a fixed price
Can help to create sense of ownership
Increase loyalty and motivation
Works best in small organizations that regularly turn a profit
Gainsharing
Group incentive plans based on improved productivity or performance over which workforce has some control
Reduce other costs and the ‘gain’ shared between employees
Skill-Based Pay
Motivate employees to learn a wide variety of work tasks, irrespective of the job they are doing at a given time
Useful on self managed teams where employees divide work as they see fit
Job Design
Structure, content, configuration of a person’s work tasks and roles
Job Scope
Breadth and depth of a job
Breadth: number of different activities performed on the job
Depth: degree of discretion or control the worker has over how these tasks are performed
Increasing Job Scope
Stretch assignments: offer employees opportunities to broaden their skills by working on variety of challenging assignments and projects
Job rotation: involves rotating employees to different tasks and jobs in an organization
Job Characteristic Model
Several core job characteristics that have psychological impact on workers which influence
Skill variety: amount of skills required
Task identity: how you identify with final product
Task significance: degree of impact that job has on others
Autonomy: freedom and discretion to do the job
Feedback from job: info about level of performance
Task Significance Doctor Study
Personal: hand hygiene prevents you from catching disease
Patient focused: hand hygiene prevents patients from catching disease
Control: gel in, wash out
Measure amount of soap used (weight)
For other oriented appeal
Doctors washed hands significantly longer after intervention
Nurses increased too but initial hand washing time started higher to begin with
Job Enrichment
Design of jobs to enhance intrinsic motivation, quality of work life, job involvement
Combining tasks
Establishing external client relationships
Establishing internal client relationships
Reducing supervision or reliance on others
Forming work teams
Making feedback more direct
Job Involvement
Cognitive state of psychological identification with job and importance of work to one’s total self image
Potential Problems with Job Enrichment
Poor diagnosis
Lack of desire or skill (some people don’t want enriched jobs)
Demands for rewards
Union resistance
Supervisory resistance
Work Design Characteristics
Attributes of the task, job, and social and organizational environment
Relational Job Design
Focus on structural properties of work that shape employees’ opportunities to connect and interact with others
Prosocial motivation: desire to expend effort to benefit other people
Job Crafting
Self initiated changes that employees make in job demands and job resources to improve fit or match between job characteristics and personal abilities and needs
Management By Objectives (MBO)
Elaborate, systematic, ongoing management program designed to facilitate goal establishment, goal accomplishment, employee development
Leads to productivity gains
Requires time and commitment
Flexible Work Arrangements
Work options that permit flexibility in terms of where and/or when work is completed
Flex Time
Flexibility in terms of when employees work
Compressed Workweek
Compress hours worked each week into fewer days
Most common 4 ten hour days
Job Sharing
Two part time employees divide the work of a full time job
Work Sharing
Reducing number of hours employees work in order to avoid layoffs when there is reduction in normal business activity
Telecommuting
Work from remote locations but stay in touch with offices via the internet
