Have you ever busted your ass at work and finished everything you had to do early? You had some non-work things you wanted to focus on or leave work all together.
It doesn’t happen that way does it? When you work really hard and get all your stuff done, what are you rewarded with?
That’s right: More Work!
You think to yourself: “Why are they giving me more work? I busted my ass to be done with work, not get more of it!”
That would be like keeping your kid from going outside until they clean their room and once they clean their room, you tell them they have to clean the kitchen and can’t go outside until after 5pm.
The problem with the employer-employee relationship is that the incentive system disincentivizes the employee from going above and beyond.
Instead, people in offices all over the world, spread their work out through the day to seem busy for the whole time they’re at work.
When the outcome of a situation is always the same no matter how hard you work, why not do the bare minimum in order to avoid the consequences of doing too little work.
And that’s where the vast majority of employees reside: not doing so much that the employer gives them more but doing enough so as not to get reprimanded.
Employers combat this with motivational speeches and end of year bonuses. The problem is motivational speeches always seem cheesy and year-end bonuses (that may or may not actually happen) aren’t good drivers on a day-to-day basis.
The core of this problem is that the employee knows that even if the employer rewards the hard work, it will only be a small fraction of what the work was actually worth and the employer will reap a disproportionate benefit for themselves.
But that’s how it should work right?
The employer did take the risk of starting the company and probably worked incredibly hard to get to the point where they could hire employees. And of course that risk and hard work should be compensated.
Also businesses are generally try to grow and expand to stay competitive and with that expansion comes more work. Generally revenue lags behind this work so there are periods of increased workloads and a steady bottom line, which means the employer needs to get more out of their existing employees before they can hire on additional people.
This is the predicament of managers all over the globe.
In a nutshell, the employer/employee dance looks something like this:
Employer: How can I get the most out of my employees?
Employee: How can I conserve the most energy for things I actually enjoy without getting fired?
As with any systematic dilemma, I think it’s critical that we look at the system rather than the actors.
I believe the problem is the lack of ownership that employers give their employees so here are a three ways of employee compensation that could boost moral and increase productivity:
- Work tasks could be more like a marketplace where employees can bid on the tasks they want to do and make a fee directly on the tasks they perform. That way if you are ambitious and want more work, you can do more work and make more money. On the flip side, if you’re happy where you’re at, you can do less work and make less money.
- Let employees take ownership of their working hours. Does it really matter that a task gets done from the hours of 9 to 5? Maybe the employee wants to go surfing on a Tuesday morning and they get their Tuesday work done at 8pm on Monday night. Having the ability to choose when to work and when to play would be a huge perk (as long as you get your work done on time).
- Instead of financial bonuses, figure out something the employee really wants to buy and set a target for them to reach and then buy it for them. For example, I really want a camera for Vlogging, I’ve done a bunch of research and have settle on the Canon G7X Mark ii. On a day to day basis, the prospect of earning that camera would far exceed the motivation to earn the same amount in cash.
These are unconventional work incentives that would bring certain challenges with them. But I personally would take these incentives over extra money any day.