Blog Post #15

01/11/2019

Incentives

Incentives can be anything from bonuses to extra days off. The military has a few incentives, like extra pay for knowing certain languages and bonuses to reenlist. Civilian careers often have more incentives like pay bonuses, promotions, and more career mobility. Incentives can be dangerous in the workplace because it can create transactional relationships with subordinates.   

In the military leaders use incentives to encourage troops to win competitions against other units or platoons. For example, the incentive for winning a shooting contest might be letting the unit go home early that day. Incentives can range anywhere from time off to being allowed to skip working out in the morning. leaders implement these carefully, soldiers should work hard because they are paid to. Superiors do not want soldiers expecting to receive a reward every time they do something good. 

Most often incentives to win are emplaced to encourage heated friendly competitions between units. The Army has a lot of “A type” personalities in the military and leaders try to use incentives to bring out that competitive nature. On the Civilian side, there is obviously competition as well. If used properly utilizing incentives would increase productivity only for a short duration.

Use incentives sparingly, employees should work because it is their job. If you have certain sales objectives and you need to meet them, implement incentives. You can split the sales team into two groups and whoever sells the most wins whatever prize you give. This is the best way to implement incentives, the competition may push the sales past the objective. 

You have to be careful, you do not want to make the competition too high stakes. This could cause a fissure in the team. Ensure if you use this technique to consistently mix up the teams. If you notice a tactic is starting to cause problems with a particular group, do not try to use it again.  

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Have you ever received or used incentives? please comment and be respectful. If you have any friends or family that may be interested in this content, please refer them to this site.