Posted by Reilly Atkinson on November 01, 2002 at 18:08:16:

In Reply to: Re: Dangers of Rewarding Employees posted by Boris Pluskowski on November 01, 2002 at 10:29:20:

Boris -- Who else but the person in question knows what will motivate them?

I've seen 30 year olds attempting to be paternalistic, "I know best", with 50 year old workers who know exactly how things work. I've seen 30 year old MBA whiz kids decimate the sales of a major publishing company by messing around with so-called incentives and reassigning territories for the sales people, some of whom had close to 30 years of experience. Naturally, these whiz kids never talked to any of the salespeople.Such managers have no business trying to motivate" people -- unless they are strongly wired into the worker culture, and have a sophisticated knowledge of the workers in question, and have a deep knowledge of the business.

It seems to me, based on experience and common sense, that if a worker or a manager figures out how to save $, or do something better, then they should get a sizable piece of the action, and lots of credit.Simple and fair. Ultimately you want to promote substantial achievement, and excellence.

This is a hot button topic with me. I've seen far too many arrogant, ignorant managers and executives cause no end of problems, and get raises or bonuses -- perhaps there should be a reverse incentive program -- you mess up, you pay.

I'm not saying the research you cite is wrong, but I find the results rather hard to swallow. How big a sample, how much of the small to huge business spectrum, what are the skill levels, educational levels, turnover, SIC categories, and so forth are covered. (I apologize for such an awkward sentence)

I've found that bonuses work very well as motivators -- workers deserve them as much as managers do.

Regards,
Reilly Atkinson

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Follow Ups:

• Re: Dangers of Rewarding Employees Jack Vinson 10:32:24 11/05/02 (0)
• Re: Dangers of Rewarding Employees Boris Pluskowski 13:03:44 11/04/02 (1)
  • reward and promotion Matthew Nti 14:28:00 03/07/03 (0)

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