Rewards Quotes
February 7th, 2006[ Office Gossip ]
Some old rewards related quotes to make you love your paycheque…
“Not only are financial rewards not the most important thing to most people, but a substantial body of research has demonstrated, both in experimental and field settings, that large rewards can actually undermine intrinsic motivation. This process involves self-perception and retrospective sense-making: If someone works for a large reward, when called upon to account for his of her behaviour, the reward is a salient explanation – I did it for the money. When working hard for less money or for money that is less salient a rationale, people will come to see intrinsic interest in the work or the organization itself as their motivation.
An emphasis on financial incentives is controlling, and this control can set up psychological reactance in which people rebel against attempts to control their behaviour. ‘By making that bonus contingent on certain behaviours, managers manipulate their subordinates, and that experience of being controlled is likely to assume a punitive quality over time.’”
“The legendary statistical consultant W. Edwards Deming, with his characteristic gift for understatement, has called the system by which merit is appraised and rewarded ‘the most powerful inhibitor to quality and productivity in the Western world.’ He adds that it ‘nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, nourishes rivalry and …leaves people bitter.’ To this we can add that it is simply unfair to the extent that employees are held responsible for what are, in reality, systemic factors that are beyond their control.”
“All this is not to say that pay is unimportant to people. If individuals are not treated fairly, pay becomes a symbol of the unfairness and a source of discontent. If the job, or the organization, or both, are basically unpleasant, boring, or unchallenging, then pay may be the only source of satisfaction or motivation in the work environment. But, creating a fun, challenging, and empowered work environment in which individuals are able to use their abilities to do meaningful jobs for which they are shown appreciation is likely to be a more certain way to enhance motivation and performance – even though creating such an environment may be more difficult and take more time than merely turning the reward lever.”
“As Bill Strusz, Director of Compensation at Xerox’s US Customer’s Operations division, is fond of saying, if you focus solely on compensation and change compensation only, you will get two results: nothing will happen, and you will spend a lot of money getting there.”
“To this point, I have argued that money’s role in the context of work is less prominent than we have assumed. When we widen our inquiry to look at the significance of money relative to life itself, the results are even more striking. As the sociologist Philip Slater once remarked, ‘The idea that everybody wants money is propaganda circulated by wealth addicts to make themselves feel better about their addiction.’”
“Organizational incentive systems send important messages about how and what the organization thinks of its members. A system that is reasonably complicated and comprehensive, rewarding myriad micro behaviours, sends the message that management believes people won’t do what is necessary unless they are rewarded for every little thing. A system of micro-level behavioral or outcome incentives also tends to convey an absence of trust, implying that people must be measured and rewarded for everything or they won’t do what is expected of them.”
“Individual incentive schemes erode teamwork and trust and set people against one another in a competition for rewards. Such systems do not promote sharing knowledge. Why should I teach you if we are competing for a fixed pool of salary raises? Such systems also don’t do much to promote concern about organizational well-being. Climbing the corporate rank or salary ladder becomes a more important objective than ensuring the organization’s overall success, particularly if job security is limited and the real goal is to get ready for a move to the next job, building a track record through a salary history and not by actual accomplishments.”
“By emphasizing financial rewards above all else, organizations signal that money is basically all they provide to those who work in them – not fun or meaningful work, only pay. Intrinsic motivation diminishes.”