Motivation, you’ve got to have the right recipe for success

It’s no surprise to us Engage & Prosperers who find motivation a truly fascinating subject, that the results from this recent academic research project put the most motivating factor with the biggest impact on productivity performance as compliments, closely followed by a tangible (and delicious) reward of free pizza, which resulted in overall higher productivity performance.

The controlled study involved four groups in total. One group was incentivised with a cash bonus equating to approximately £20, a second group was told they would receive a compliment from their boss by text message and a third group was offered a voucher for a free pizza. A further control group received no message and would not gain any reward.

Whilst many might think quite logically that cash is king and the biggest motivator out of any possible option, it is rarely the case. Although rationally it makes sense to most people that money would have the most impact to performance, as everyone needs money to spend on what they need or wish to. It is not craved in the same way or with equalled desire to those emotionally driven motivators that provide that hit of dopamine gained from recognition or a tangible reward.

After the first day, results showed those in line for a pizza prize had a productivity boost of 6.7%, while those who were due to receive a compliment increased their productivity by almost as much at 6.6%. Employees in the cash bonus group only increased their productivity by 4.9%.

However by the end of the trial week, the reward of earning a compliment proved to be the best motivator, followed by the thought of free pizza. Those who would not receive any reward came in third with the monetary bonus falling into last place, actually performing 13.2% worse than the control group.

Yet ultimately a compliment and therefore recognition, by the manager by text was the overall winner in driving the best productivity results and motivation.

So it pays to consider the potential impact of incentives both the good and bad as cold hard cash can actually have the opposite effect on performance than intended by altering the dynamic and relationship between the employee and employer resulting in a net reduction in performance than the business-as-usual benchmark. What might have been an initiative seeking to foster discretionary effort, was ultimately conveyed or received as ” work harder and we’ll give you a bonus”. When actually the employees in this instance were motivated positively by an actual tangible reward (the pizza) albeit a voucher for a pizza, as the reward was able to be visualised in the minds of the staff and the desire to have the pizza possibly resonated with them much more. Yet ultimately a compliment and therefore recognition, by the manager by text was the overall winner in driving the best productivity results and motivation.  Who doesn’t want recognition or appreciation for their effort and loyalty at work.

What’s so encouraging about this study and result is that if a text message can have such a big impact on performance (the promise of it at that), what added impact would an actual thank you and recognition in person by the boss be or at a company awards and celebration of effort event be of work well done?

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Engage & Prosper is a UK based privately owned Employee Engagement Consultancy and Social Enterprise, on a mission to help organisations develop a highly productive and fulfilling workplace culture, with their people, through enhanced employee engagement strategies, fabulous and effective internal communications platforms and tailored reward and recognition programmes.

For more information on Engage & Prosper or to discover how we can help you achieve your organisational and people goals please call +44 (0) 330 223 0464 or find out more at www.engageandprosper.com