Do Employee Incentives Programs Work?

Posted by:  David Harbeck

Do Employee Incentives Programs Work?

The article starts out with “when businesses motivate and reward employees with incentive programs, both the management and staff win.”  I feel that this statement is true, but it can also lead to poor performance as well.  The positive effects of properly motivating employees include increase productivity as well as a nice work atmosphere; however, it can also have negative effects such as employees thinking the incentives only are attainable by certain employees.  The features, types, effects, benefits, and the enforcement policy of incentives need to all be fair and in clear detail describing how to receive incentives.  I feel that this is important so that all employees try to attain the incentives offered hence it would increase true productivity.  The expectancy theory should be applied to this due to the higher outs of performance will lead to a desirable outcome.  However, an employee can try their best and not receive the outcome desired.  An incentives program should also have been based upon a “cost benefit analysis” so that the employees and the organization are actually both rewarded.  Overall, I feel that if an incentives program is clearly defined and attainable through high productivity by employees, this should be a key factor in motivating the employees.