I have been reading more about whether rewards actually work in increasing motivation, productivity and performance. I found a good summary here:
People who are offered reward tend to choose easier tasks, are less efficient in using the information available to solve novel problems, and tend to be answer orientated and more illogical in their problem-solving strategies. They seem to work harder and produce more activity, but the activity is of a lower quality, contains more errors, and is more stereotyped and less creative than thr work of comparable nonrewarded subjects working on the same problems. Condry, 1977, pp. 471-472
There is a counter argument that says as long as people know that need to be creative to get the reward then the incentive can stimulate more creativity, however the general consensus is that do not improve performance. Also, the behaviour change the rewarder is looking for is only there for as long as a reward is being offered. After that it goes. I saw this working for a FTSE100 corporate where profit related pay was the norm. All well and good until the company went in to a period of not making a profit….that’s when they needed the workforce to perform, be creative and go the extra mile, however the carrot had dissapeared. It was a culture of rewards and not fostering peoples own intrinsic motivation. Follow that link to see how you can discover yours.
