Organizational Performance Rewards - Chapter 6

Chapter Six: Applied Performance Practices

• This chapter focuses on various performance-based rewards and practices within an organizational context.
• Different types of financial rewards are categorized, and their advantages and disadvantages are outlined.
• Money at work is examined as a form of exchange for labor, related to needs and self-concept, and interpreted as a tool or a drug.
• Motivational factors in monetary rewards and their impact on employees' performance and well-being are discussed.
• Various reward systems categorized as Membership/Seniority, Job Status, Competency, and Performance-based are examined.
• Membership/Seniority-based rewards are analyzed as pay for tenure, while also potentially impeding performance. Job Status-based rewards are tied to job evaluation and associated perks, influencing employee motivation via competition.
• Competency-based rewards motivate skill development and promote valuable employee attributes.
• Performance-based rewards, encompassing individual (bonuses, commissions) and team (gain-sharing) systems, are connected to productivity and organizational success. These rewards, especially profit sharing and ESOPs, also connect employee wellbeing with organizational prosperity.
• Techniques for improving reward effectiveness involve linking rewards to performance, ensuring relevance, valuing the rewards with employee preferences in mind, and anticipating unintended consequences.
• Job specialization is explored, detailing its benefits and drawbacks in improving efficiency versus employee motivation. Scientific management approach to work efficiency via specialized task breakdown is detailed and contrasted with potential employee dissatisfaction consequences.

Job Design

• Effective job design balances work efficiency and motivation by encompassing various aspects.
• Work efficiency is enhanced through techniques like division of labor and short cycle time but potential downsides are reviewed concerning employee motivation.
• The job characteristics model clarifies the relationship between job design and employee motivation, outlining core characteristics, critical psychological states, and resultant outcomes, all impacting work motivation, growth satisfaction, general job satisfaction. This model highlights individual differences in knowledge, skills, context satisfaction, and growth needs strength.

Job Enrichment

• Job enrichment increases employees' responsibility in scheduling, coordinating, and planning work, contrasted with alternative approaches like job enlargement or job rotation..
• Techniques include natural grouping of jobs, establishing client relationships, and empowering employees.

Psychological Empowerment

• Psychological empowerment is a perceptual and emotional state where employees feel a sense of self-determination, meaning, competence, and impact in their work.
• This chapter details factors supporting empowerment, encompassing individual competencies for job performance, job design considerations like autonomy, task identification, job feedback, and organizational considerations like resource availability, learning environment, and trust.

Self-Leadership

• Self-leadership encompasses the cognitive and behavioral strategies employed by individuals to achieve personal goals. Self-leadership enhances self-direction and motivation through varied, conceptual strategies like personal goal setting, constructive thought patterns, designing natural rewards, and self-monitoring to achieve desired goals and improved performance.
• Predictable factors of successful self-leadership, including individual characteristics like conscientiousness and extroversion (and self-esteem, self-efficacy, internal locus, and organizational factors like autonomy and effective leadership.