Employee incentives: bonuses or penalties?

Firms regularly use incentives to motivate their employees to be more productive. However, often little attention is paid to the language used in employment contracts to describe these incentives. It may be more effective to present incentives as entitlements that can be lost by failing to reach a p...

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Main Author: Nosenzo, Daniele
Format: Article
Published: IZA 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32652/
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author Nosenzo, Daniele
author_facet Nosenzo, Daniele
author_sort Nosenzo, Daniele
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Firms regularly use incentives to motivate their employees to be more productive. However, often little attention is paid to the language used in employment contracts to describe these incentives. It may be more effective to present incentives as entitlements that can be lost by failing to reach a performance target, rather than as additional rewards that can be gained by reaching that target. However, emphasizing the potential losses incurred as a result of failure may entail hidden costs for the employer, as it may damage the trust relationship between a firm and its employees.
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spelling nottingham-326522020-05-04T17:30:05Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32652/ Employee incentives: bonuses or penalties? Nosenzo, Daniele Firms regularly use incentives to motivate their employees to be more productive. However, often little attention is paid to the language used in employment contracts to describe these incentives. It may be more effective to present incentives as entitlements that can be lost by failing to reach a performance target, rather than as additional rewards that can be gained by reaching that target. However, emphasizing the potential losses incurred as a result of failure may entail hidden costs for the employer, as it may damage the trust relationship between a firm and its employees. IZA 2016-01-26 Article PeerReviewed Nosenzo, Daniele (2016) Employee incentives: bonuses or penalties? IZA World of Labor, 2016 (234). ISSN 2054-9571 employee motivation bonuses penalties loss aversion contract framing http://wol.iza.org/articles/employee-incentives-bonuses-or-penalties doi:10.15185/izawol.234 doi:10.15185/izawol.234
spellingShingle employee motivation
bonuses
penalties
loss aversion
contract framing
Nosenzo, Daniele
Employee incentives: bonuses or penalties?
title Employee incentives: bonuses or penalties?
title_full Employee incentives: bonuses or penalties?
title_fullStr Employee incentives: bonuses or penalties?
title_full_unstemmed Employee incentives: bonuses or penalties?
title_short Employee incentives: bonuses or penalties?
title_sort employee incentives: bonuses or penalties?
topic employee motivation
bonuses
penalties
loss aversion
contract framing
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32652/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32652/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32652/