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Have you been scouring the internet trying to look for the best reward system for your employees? Let me tell you a secret; there’s none! I’ve tried different approaches, many times myself, and they didn’t work.
The bonus system aims to give out incentives (monetary or otherwise) to motivate employees to bring out their best and be productive. However, this kind of approach is counterproductive and not to mention expensive.
If you’re looking for a perfect incentive system for your employees, you should not miss out on these three elements: alignment, belonging, and healthy conflict. A reward system should not curb creativity and risk-taking. Once it’s manipulative and punitive, it will predictively fail 100%.
Tune in and find solutions to common practice issues at Prescriptions for Your Practice
Key Quotes:
- “What’s the best bonus system out there? And the short answer, the bottom line up front, is that there is no such thing.”
- “If you work from that mental frame, work for wages, then you immediately assume that if I give more wages, if I give an incentive or bonus program, then I have a better team and I’ll get more and better work… it just doesn’t work.”
- “Modern research says that bonus systems suck, and it can actually demotivate employees, or worse, motivate them to be egocentric, to work on their own self-interests.”
- “Most people are looking for alignment, belonging, and healthy conflict.”
- “You, as the practice owner, are completely limiting the effectiveness of your team if it’s a top-down approach.”
- “If we don’t first fulfill those common human needs, a bonus system will likely be expensive at best, counterproductive at worst.”
- “I really didn’t have the practice or team that I dreamed of until I really dug into the science of human potential, the science of organizational behavior.”
- “No bonus system can match the internal motivations of your team.”
Featured on the Show:
- Podcast
- Article: Why Incentive Plans Cannot Work by Alfie Cohn (Harvard Business Review)
- Book: Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations by Dan Ariely
- Book: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
- Book: Dentist On A Mission by Dr. David Maloley
- I love feedback. Let me know what you learned and loved here: [email protected]
