What are Incentives?
Incentives are anything that encourages people to do something. Could be in the form of money or tangible awards. According to research, a new study proves that incentive programs can boost staff performance by as much as 44 percent.
Normally, it is not the duty of the staff of an organization to demand incentives, but any reasonable organization knows that giving incentives to staff can increase interest and devotion to work, which will positively affect the productivity of the organization.
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During my research, I came across a study that stated that when incentives are first offered for completing a task, a 15 percent increase in performance occurs. When asked to persist towards a goal, performance increases by 27 percent when motivated by incentives.
When incentive programs are used to encourage staff, “thinking smarter”, performance increases by 26 percent. One major thing to note is that an organization that offers properly structured incentive programs possesses the ability to attract and retain high-quality workers compared to other organizations that do not operate incentive programs.
It is not rocket science, because generally, humans love to be appreciated. They will rather go where they are appreciated for their services rendered than go to those who feel they are doing them a favor by employing them. Companies that offer incentives always grow tremendously and achieve high results because of the devotedness and commitment of their staff.
Asides from just implementing incentive programs, there are researched conditions that ensure its success. This is a study carried out under which incentive program works best;
- The goal is challenging but achievable
- The desired performance type and level can be quantified
- Current performance is inadequate
- The focus on promoting a particular behavior does not conflict or override everyday organizational goals.
- The cause of the inadequate performance is related to deficiencies in motivation.
All these above-mentioned conditions for the success of incentive programs further prove that there are still conditions where incentives are implemented but its goal is not fully achieved or yields little result. This means that incentive programs must be carefully analyzed and Carried out properly to ensure that it doesn’t go against the performance objective.
Conclusion
Most employees need the motivation to feel good about their work and perform exceptionally well. Introducing incentive programs in a workplace has a lot of benefits on employees.
When employees are recognized for their outstanding performance and productivity, it increases their morale and they give their all which later benefits the employers because they will begin to experience an increase in sales and production.