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The facts about incentive pay

In the following essay, I am going to analyze incentives for workers to perform tasks, and thus come up with a conclusion as to what makes the most sense for employers to incentivize their employees with. I will back up my analysis with the mention of two research papers.

The exchange of money for the completion of tasks, the labour market, is arguably one of the most important transactions for the ongoing of our economy. If it did not exist, we would not be able to progress further into developing our world into a better home for the generations to come. And with this importance, comes a concept just as important, keeping employees just as motivated to continue working.

Human nature is such that motivation within us does not last forever, and thus refilling ourselves on a constant dose of motivational fuel is pivotal in the success of our tasks.

There are in general, two types of incentive pay, which are merit pay and bonus pay. Merit pay can be defined as the permanent increase related to performance against a standard that reflection evidence of permanently increased productivity. The term bonus can also be defined similarly as a single period additional pay related to performance that may not be reproducible in the next period without sufficient additional effort. We will examine the advantages and disadvantages of both these pay structures.

Under the umbrella of merit pay is the piece rate, where workers are paid on the basis of the output they produce. Piece rates hold the benefits of workers are motivated to produce more output because of the fact that their wages are directly proportional to their pay, it is a system that attracts good workers due to the fact that more skilled labour will want to join the company because of such a pay structure, and there exist savings of monitoring workers and keeping track of their productivity.

Seeing how effective such a piece rate method of payment is, I am going to support my argument with supporting research. Edward Lazear wrote a paper titled “Performance Pay and Productivity” where he examined how effective the incentive pay of piece rate was in inducing workers to produce more output. His examination of personnel economics uses data from a company called Safelite Glass Corporation, which is an auto glass company. His use of this data derives from the fact that in 1994 and 1995, management in the company changed the compensation from hourly wages to piece rates. This provided the necessary data to analyze how effective the new piece rate was in inducing more output.

His findings can be summarized into the following points:

1. A switch to piece-rate pay has a significant effect on average levels of output per worker. This is in the range of a 44-percent gain.

2. The gain can be attributed to two components. Approximately half of the gain in productivity resulted from the ability of the company to hire a more able workforce.

3. The change to piece rate resulted in both gains in productivity for the firm and benefits for the employees. Employees on average earned 10% higher due to the change.

4. Switching to a piece rate increases the variance in output. More ambitious workers have less incentive to differentiate themselves when hourly wages are paid than when piece-rate pay is used.

Even though these findings are specific to one firm, they provide useful insights into how piece rates can affect employees and firms.

In a different research paper titled “Pay Enough or Don’t Pay At All” by Gneezy and Rustichini, the researchers find that some employees react negatively to the piece rate offered if the wages are not substantial enough.

The researchers set out to figure out whether the default economic theory that incentives should induce performance is realistic in the complex world we live in. The researchers conducted an experiment in a lab where students were asked to answer a few IQ test questions and were told that they would be paid a piece rate related to the number of answers they got correct. They got a base pay for showing up for the test and then the subjects were divided into three groups that were randomly assigned a piece rate.

What the researchers found is that the test subjects perceived the piece rate as follows. The test subjects just offered the base pay and nothing more did the job more effectively than subjects that were offered a small piece rate plus base pay. This is because offering a small piece rate changes the perception of the contract as explained below.

If a zero piece rate is offered, subjects tend to perceive the ‘contract’ as follows: “The experimenter has offered me 60 cents to do a job. Now I know what that job is –answering questions—and it is my job to do it satisfactorily.” Putting this in a different way—subjects interpret this as a gift exchange contract.

If a positive piece rate is offered, subjects tend to perceive the contract more as follows: “The experimenter has offered me 60 cents to show up. I’ve done that. Now he is offering me 10 cents per question to answer questions.

The question of incentive pay is an important question labour economists have been trying to answer for years and we need to strive as a society in figuring out what the most effective way of motivating our employees is. In the above analysis, I briefly touched upon piece rate with some evidence from research, but there are a variety of incentive pay schemes the labour market can take advantage of.

Piece rates can be effectively put to use to induce productivity if used correctly. In the case of the first research paper, the nature of the work determined the success of the piece rate. In the second research case, a high piece rate was effective in inducing higher productivity. The piece rate, if implemented wisely, can be a very important determinant in a company’s labour output.

References
1. Gneezy, Uri, and Aldo Rustichini. “Pay Enough or Don’t Pay at All*.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 115, no. 3, 2000, pp. 791–810., doi:10.1162/003355300554917.
2. Lazear, Edward. “Performance Pay and Productivity.” 1996, doi:10.3386/w5672.

Being the token female or minority boss is better for YOUR career than encouraging greater diversity, claims new study

  • Researchers found that female or minority managers who tried to promote diversity were treated with suspicion by their bosses and peer
  • White male leaders who sought to promote diversity didn’t have the same stigma attached to them
  • Female and minority bosses actually benefited from being viewed as token minority representatives at a senior level
  • The authors wonder whether it might be better for diversity offices to be run by white males
  • ‘Almost all diversity offices are run by non-whites and women, but that further ghettoizes diversity itself and makes it so it’s not taken seriously’

By David McCormack

Women and ethnic minorities who reach executive level positions in corporate America have more to lose from encouraging and promoting diversity in the workplace than their white male counterparts, claims a new study.

Researchers from The University of Colorado found that female and minorities managers who tried to encourage greater diversity were treated with suspicion by their peers and bosses who thought they were indulging in selfish favoritism rather than promoting deserving candidates.

White male leaders who sought to promote diversity didn’t have the same stigma attached to them. (Read more…)

The role of the healthcare provider.

We often hear about the role employers, schools and teachers, landlord’s, and so forth have in ensuring that a disabled patient can get their treatment. Things such as time off work/school, and accessible apartment, and so forth.

Which is fine, but what if your healthcare provider is exploiting that?

From the Ontario Human Rights Commission:

Ontario’s Human Rights Code, the first in Canada, was enacted in 1962. 

The Code prohibits actions that discriminate against people based on a protected ground  in a protected social area.

Protected grounds are:

  • Age
  • Ancestry, colour, race
  • Citizenship
  • Ethnic origin
  • Place of origin
  • Creed
  • Disability
  • Family status
  • Marital status (including single status)
  • Gender identity, gender expression
  • Receipt of public assistance (in housing only)
  • Record of offences (in employment only)
  • Sex (including pregnancy and breastfeeding)
  • Sexual orientation.

Protected social areas are:

  • Accommodation (housing)
  • Contracts
  • Employment
  • Services
  • Vocational associations (unions).

So the code says that someone with a disability, for example, can’t have their rights infringed. But it DOES NOT SAY that only employers, for example, infringe.

What if it is your healthcare provider infringing?

I don’t think doctors, nurses, managers, and administrators think of it as infringing on your rights. They book your appointment for 3 pm Thursday, but I might only be part time, that might be my only work shift that week. What about MY RIGHT to earn an income?

Now I’ll freely admit that most health providers can easily re-schedule most tests and procedures. But what if they insist, and you have to fill out one of those against medical advice forms to do so? In my view, that’s infringing on my rights as a disabled person.

I think we need to have a conversation on how our healthcare providers work with our professors/school, employers, landlords, etc. Everyone probably tells you that “your health comes first.” That’s total BS. Without money to pay the rent, and purchase groceries, the treatment means nothing.

It’s time to reconsider our priorities.

Can your manager be a gift horse?

Can you manager be a gift horse? Setting expectations.

In our lives, growing up, in school, entering the working world, and moving up the ladder, along the way we get ideas as to what our ‘ideal’ manager would be. The person we report to. Everyone has a different experience, and I’m sure there are more than a few entry level folks afraid of their manager.

Why afraid? We see examples of manager’s on tv. But what if you’re that one unlucky person, who has just had the worst manager in every role they’ve been in? Never allowed even a brief escape so they can breathe. Those are your people who end up on short and long term disability.

We’d like to avoid that.

Instead, I believe manager’s have a duty and obligation to be a gift horse. You’ve heard the saying “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Being in customer service, I know all about setting expectations. A mother may expect that her child will grow up and become Prime Minister of Canada. A father may expect his child to simply grow old due to a developmental disability. And yet another parent may expect their child to pass away due to being born with HIV.

For a manager, the challenges, and juggling, are immense. But that manager has to set expectations with their employees, and vice versa. It’s a relationship that both employee, and manager must, at the very least, endure. But why should both of those people simply endure it?

I have long believed that you have to check your issues at the door. Your spouse might have left you. It’s not your employee’s fault. They don’t deserve to take the brunt of your anger. Instead they deserve your compassion. And yes, this might be a one way street, because you are the manager. You were chosen to lead for a reason.

I don’t expect a manger to be giving out favours and gifts, I expect a manager to give out fairness and compassion. Treat your employees fair, have compassion at all times, and evaluate them fairly, always erring on the side of the benefit of the doubt for them. It’s been proven that employees with low work stress levels are happy, productive employees.