Some employers reward members of staff for their exceptional contribution to the company by giving them extra money. This practice can act as an incentive for some but may also have a negative impact on others. To what extent is this style of management effective? Are there better ways of encouraging employees to work hard?

Excellent performance by employees in an organisation is usually rewarded in different ways and giving money to the best employee is a common trend in most of the organisations. Though this is a good way to motivate employees to work harder and better and engage in a positive competition, some people opine that this is not the best way to encourage employee. They think that there are better alternatives for this type of rewards. In my opinion money as a reward in combination with other motivations can be the best way for encouraging people to work harder.

First of all, one of the main reasons people work in an office is money. No matter how cordially we deny the fact that we work for money, the reality is we need money to support our family, our personal needs and to live in this world. There are definitely other factors like job satisfaction, passion for work, working environment, career prospect, relationship with co-workers and bosses that determine whether an employee is motivated to work in an organisation or not but the money the employee gets at the end of each week or month is the main determining factor. From this regard, additional money as a reward for exceptional contribution by a staff is the best way to motivate him.

Some people would argue that there are definitely better ways to motivate an employee for an exceptional performance like allowing extended holidays, giving crest, congratulating and praising. They also think that giving money to the employee of the month has a detrimental impact on others. I quite disagree with this opinion from my personal experience. I worked in a multinational company where more than 200 people worked. The best employee of the month used to get more than $600 and a certificate. This worked quite well as most of the employees in different teams wanted to be the employee of the month for the prestige and the money. I am pretty positive that other forms of rewards would have motivated employees for a short period but would not ignite the performance completion among employees in a long run.

Again, I think that giving additional money to an employee for his work performance would not create any negative impact on others. Any form of rewards like a plane ticket, crest, certificate, holidays is quite restricted in terms of their utilisation while money would give the employee complete freedom on how to spend it. For instance what if an employee wants to buy his mother a gift with the additional money he might earns- only money as a reward would ensure that. Finally, the motivations and encouragements are not universal and hence do not apply for all. This varies from person to person. While money can motivate the majority of the employees some of them might already have it in plenty and could find motivation from the praising and positive feedbacks from bosses. From this regards, congratulations from higher authority, certificate along with the money would be most effective to inspire workers to work even better in my opinion.

I would like to conclude my essay saying that money with proper recognition for the best performing employee could be the best way to motive and inspire employees in an organisation to work smarter and harder.