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Underlying flaws in Pay for Performance
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Underlying flaws in Pay for Performance
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In Janet Wiscombe?s Workforce Week article on pay for performance, Jay Schuster asked, ?? if you're not going to pay for performance, what are you going to pay for?"
While I use it somewhat different
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Forums » Topic Forums » Work Views » Underlying flaws in Pay for Performance
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Underlying flaws in Pay for Performance
posted at 8/9/2001 8:37 AM EDT
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Posts: 1
First: 8/9/2001 Last: 8/9/2001 |
In Janet Wiscombe?s Workforce Week article on pay for performance, Jay Schuster asked, ?? if you're not going to pay for performance, what are you going to pay for?"
While I use it somewhat differently, it is a key question: What are we paying people for? I believe this question is at the heart of the flawed and harmful assumptions about work, pay, people and management. If we are paying people to do there best to achieve the assignments and results they?re given, what is the purpose then of results-based incentive pay? Such programs indicate that we are in fact NOT paying people to do their best, for we ask them to do MORE to get the incentive. And who can do more than his/her best? Also, most evaluation programs ignore this fact, as well as the related issue that if someone is doing his/her best there is no more he/she can do to achieve results. Whether the results are achieved is not within the control of the employee ? unless they manipulate the system in order to gain control. That accountability lies with the manager who assigns the tasks and timelines, provides for the work processes and resources, etc. Asking individual employees to be accountable for, and paying them for, their results is inherently corrupting. Individual employees should be appraised for whether they are doing their best, or not, and how that matches with the level of work required in the role. And there?s the rub. With no widely acknowledged measure of level of work, we have come to rely on ?behavioral competencies? and results to assess people and their work. The good news is that an objective measure of level of work DOES exist. I encourage all who wish to have appraisal systems, management systems, and pay systems that produce both trust and leaps in productivity to investigate the work of Elliott Jaques, called Requisite Organization. It?s use over the past 50 years in a few companies world-wide has proven it can predictably produce these conditions. Of note, sales forces and mining workers have opted to forgo commission pay system and hourly/overtime pay systems (respectively) under such conditions. |
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Underlying flaws in Pay for Performance
posted at 1/28/2002 5:14 AM EST
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Posts: 977
First: 12/25/2001 Last: 10/3/2010 |
>If we are paying people to do there best to achieve the assignments and results they?re given, what is the purpose then of results-based incentive pay? <
What if their best is not good enough? |
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Underlying flaws in Pay for Performance
posted at 2/19/2002 11:55 AM EST
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Posts: 37
First: 1/8/2002 Last: 9/29/2005 |
Then we need to examine if the fault lies exclusively with the individual, exclusively with the environment, or a combination of both. It is all too easy, esp. in our pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps American self-help culture to believe the individual and only the individual is responsible for his performance. Conversely, it is easy for some individuals to engage in the popular American pasttime called "victimhood," from blaming it all on the nights of a rotten childhood, being too young/too old, traditional discrimination, reverse discrimination, etc. If those adults who perform and those adults who give rewards are indeed mature, they can actively work on seeing where room for improvement exists in each. Neither would feel any fear of reprisal. The adult employee would not feel like a child when a boss suggests improvement. And the employer would not be resentful when the employee suggests the emperor change his clothes. They may even note that the situation is one where success is potentially difficult, if not impossible. Yet because so many of these situations pin one adult against controlling the set of future rewards and references towards another, few are willing to jeopardize the fragile nature of such relationships. What many an adult then decides is declare it hopeless for themselves, and find a better employment situation, esp. one where reward is more imminent. |
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