Strategic Development

Business is becoming more and more challenging with each year that passes. Competition is fierce and new layers of complexity are constantly evolving. In order of organizations to be successful in meeting these challenges, they must hire, retain, and effectively motivate their human capital which is why having a thoughtful plan to do so is critical. The plan should be well defined, balanced, and allow for both intrinsic and extrinsic reward systems. A mixture of effective recognition programs (intrinsic), as well as pay for performance programs (extrinsic), makes sense since people are different and hence motivated by different things. Organizations are well to do in avoiding reward systems that are singularly centered towards driving revenue as it may disenfranchise employees who respond better to intrinsic rewards such as recognition and other forms of public/private praise.
As a manager, I would select to incentivize my workforce by utilizing bonuses for aspects such as sales performance, customer service, and acquiring additional work competencies. I like this mixture since it will drive business performance from a sales perspective (which in turn drives profitability), protects the brand from a customer service perspective, while encouraging employees to diversify their skillsets by learning new competencies. I also like the fact that bonus structures focus on results that have occurred in the recent past and are great tools to re-focus a work force to repeat the performance improvements each fiscal quarter. “The potential downside to bonus structures, however, is that employees are more vulnerable to cuts in pay” if and when profitability decreases and companies are forced to eliminate bonus payouts (Robbins & Judge, 2011).
Companies looking to extend the motivation levels of employees should continuously focus on calibrating their motivation plan to ensure that it’s aligned with desired business outcomes and that it’s truly focused on relevant