Small Group Incentive Pay

“Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life”(Levitt and Dubner 12). Levitt and Dubner once mentioned in their book “Freakonomics”. According to Oxford dictionary, incentives are something tends to incite to action or greater effort, as a reward offered for increased productivity (“incentives”). In business field, incentives are something given by bosses to encourage their employees to endeavour in bringing benefits to their business. For a simple example, the employee who hits the monthly or year sales target will get cash or prizes as incentives. Apparently, these incentives are something that motivates employees maintains their great performance and also to motivate other employee, whoever wants to get the incentives, work harder.

Group Incentive Plan: It is set in place to promote helpful, combined behavior among employees. Through this company a group incentive plan assists in nurturing relationships among their staff member, inspiring them to discover ways to collaborate in a shared environment in order to be successful. The method is able to create a stronger team, brainstorming and building a entrusted sense of project ownership for everyone.

For the most part, a company’s compensation policy aims to ensure that employees are compensated in a fair and competitive manner. However, the compensation objectives employed by different companies can vary widely. This is especially true when taking into account wages vs. skills, competitor salaries, pay-for-performance, and other elements of compensation, like overtime, incentives, etc. (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander, 2015).

Individual incentive pay plans reward employees for meeting one or a combination of performance standards (e.g. productivity, safety, or attendance) set by the employer (Martocchio. 2013). Piece- rate pay is one of four individual incentive plans offered in the employment industry. Employers have two options to select from when choosing this incentive plan. The first option is compensating the employee hourly for each piece over the given production number. The second option is compensating employees based on established subjective (quality) and objective (quantity) performance standards. In both options the employee is, essentially, being compensated for the work he or she does and not what could have been completed (Gibbons. 1987).  Motivation,

A Performance-Based Pay system is an increasingly popular compensation method used by organizations to increase productivity. A goal for all companies is to try and remain competitive and control costs, this is a reason for performance-based pay systems becoming more popular. This type of system attempts to link compensation to performance. (Gena Richter, 2002) These systems are directly tied to organization or individual performance and are most effective when based on objective measures of quantity or quality of performance. If we wish to have a direct impact on work motivation, it must be linked directly to the performance of desired behaviors. In order for to put this type of system into place, performance evaluations must be conducted regularly , as well as training and development for those with performance that isn't quite up to par. These additional resources will be necessary for our organization if we implement a performance based pay system. (William B. Bernathy, Ph. D., 2004)

A well-articulated compensation philosophy drives organizational success by aligning pay and other rewards with business strategy. It provides the foundation for plan design and administration and anchors current and future plans to the company's culture and values (Kaplan, 2006, p.32). Recognizing and rewarding achievement is the cornerstone of the company A’s compensation philosophy. The mission of the company is to attract, select, place and promote all individuals based on their qualifications. The company believes that performance-based compensation helps attract, develop and retain talented professionals. In addition to base pay which based upon local market conditions and targeted to be above market, the company provides the following types of potential compensation to reward performance:

To foster competitiveness and deliver better results, there is a program called STACK where employees are ranked based on the work done and their incentive is decided based on it. Better the rank, better the incentives.

During the brainstorming sessions, a senior leader requested an incentive plan be implemented. The leader suggested a gift card incentive be offered to any and all team members who received 100% quality over a three month time frame. After discussions with the two on the floor leaders it was decided that a one size incentive program would not be beneficial. The quality coaches learnings strategic management classes had shown that long range incentives, were not beneficial tools for team or individual motivation. By explaining that any team member who had not achieved a 100% quality mark in the beginning of a month may not be as inclined to stay on track for 100% for the remainder of the month. This would be even harder to maintain if the expectation of a job adequately performed is less than 100% quality. In order to inspire a team to do their best throughout the month, a different program should be organized. This program should recognize both the team members desire to perform well, balanced with the likelihood of human error.

Having buy-in from key stakeholders is crucial for the success of an incentive pay system. For example, if top management does not support such a program, lower-level managers will place little importance on effectively administering the program. Hence, a lack of top management support often leads to a lack of accountability. (Gordon, Kaswin)

Although research generally confirms that pay-for-performance plans can influence greater outcomes, it is unclear how effective different pay plans are relative to each other (Park, 2012). Like most things in business, compensation is something that requires evaluation, study, assessment, strategy, modeling and integration.  Achieving a pay for performance culture does not happen without paying attention to the behaviors, activities, rewards and motivations that have to be linked and reinforced through a well engineered and successfully executed process.  Actually if that process does not tie rewards to shareholder financial objectives, employ the proper mix of compensation elements, result in meaningful dollars, embrace performance that employees can impact and are effectively communicated and reinforced, then the results it produces will likely fall short (Vision Link Advisory Group, 2013).

Keeping employees motivated in addition to creating incentives and/or additional ways for employees to receive more compensation will create better performance overall within an organization. Contrary if company B gives their employees incentives to perform, without any motivational tactics they probably will not have as many top performances as company A, in addition the company may only seek short term rewards verses have long term success. Lack of motivation for employees within an organization, can cause long term damage for the company’s success. Different things motivate everyone; therefore there should be a system in place to keep employees motivated for the long term success of the company. In the MBM textbook under the concept of incentives, compensation, and motivation, there are a couple of different views of how it should be applied within an organization. We will discuss The Social Role of Profit, Personal Profit and Losses, and the way Market-Based Management view how incentives, compensation, and motivation should be applied and the things that effectively drive employees’ actions while at work.

In this study I want to look at the effect of task complexity on the relationship between team-based incentives and performance. I will thus try to find whether task complexity is a moderating variable in the relation between incentives and performance and specifically try to find whether this effect differs for individual incentives and team incentives.

Pay for performance is to link employees’ salary or salary increase to his or her performance. It seems to be a reasonable or attractive idea but it often does not work well in organizations. Please use at least 4 motivation theories or models to explain why pay for performance may not work as expected—particularly in government and nonprofit organizations.

Aguinis (2013), teaches us there are many factors that contribute to organizations complimenting an individual performance management system with a team performance aspect. Increased pressures for global competition, the need for product innovation, and the reduction of hierarchical levels in the organization allows for a natural extension of a system that focuses on individual performance only. This paper will analyze the team based reward system designed for the State of Georgia by Georgia’s Department of Human Resources. First, will discuss the positive and negative aspects of their reward system. Next we analyze the labor relations issues facing this reward system and uncover and legal implications the State may be facing. Finally, this paper will make a recommendation to the State of Georgia to improve its current reward system by also taking into account labor relations and legal implications.

An incentive pay program can reward employees who continue to produce superior work or encourage employees who already produce good work to best. Sometimes, use an incentive system when employees are lack of enthusiasm of getting down to work and improving things. If everyone in the same job classification gets the same pay, there is no real incentive to do an outstanding job (French, 1990). Various incentive plans used to motivate all employees such as production staff, sales staff, administrative staff and managerial and professional staff on an individual basis. To be improved employee work performance, the incentive pay programs need to be fairly matched with the employees’ expectation. Properly designed and maintained incentive pay program has the potential to increase employees’ productivity and work performance.