Unretentive Incentives

In the workplace, managers often offer monetary rewards or incentives as instantaneous motivators in hopes that it will alter employee behavior. Unfortunately, although these rewards have been proven to yield desired outcomes, their impacts are short lived as managers create an environment based on extrinsic motivation. When an employee works solely to receive a paycheck it is already challenging to keep them, as other companies can offer them comparable, if not better, salaries. It is even harder to retain an employee who is accustomed to receiving an incentive with a particular behavior when the reward is no longer an option, but the behavior remains expected. The purpose of this thesis is prove to how incentives are merely a tool for temporary compliance rather than a strategy to permanently change behavior and motivation. Instead of fostering a token economy, which is typically used in children, the research will encourage managers to cultivate an intrinsically motivated workforce through three categories of building community, encouraging growth, and showing respect. Through a literature review of research and motivational theories regarding the correlation of rewards on employee motivation and retention, the negative implications of incentivizing employees will be evident