RESEARCH CENTRE: Perks and higher salaries do not improve job performance

It is often recommended that employers should give their employees certain incentives if they want to get better results year in, year out. However, a new study suggests that no amount of motivation, job perks or pay rises can boost your performance at work

because, apparently, performance is inborn and therefore cannot be changed by external factors.

Researchers from Erasmus University in The Netherlands arrived at this conclusion after studying 30 financial managers aged between 24 and 52 and with a combined average 13 years of work experience.

The researchers performed brain scans on study subjects while they were performing computer-based tasks. The subjects were then offered different incentives and their brains monitored. Their ability to process information when under different sources of

pressure and distractions was measured.

INCENTIVES DON’T WORK

The researchers observed that whether the subjects were offered cash incentives or put under social pressure to perform, their performance did not improve. While the incentives made the subjects work harder, their overall performance did not change for the

better. Apparently, you can get someone to work harder but you can’t get them to produce better results. These findings were even more apparent when the study subjects were carrying out tasks that required vigilance or attention.

The researchers concluded that each person’s brain has a limit as to how well the individual can perform tasks. Even hard work they say, can only improve one’s job performance so much.

If these findings are anything to go by, then bonus schemes that most companies use to motivate their employees may be pointless.

Explaining these findings, Professor Frank Hartmann an accounting and management control professor at the university said, “If basic biology limits our ability to improve at certain types of work, we need to think more imaginatively about the way we measure

and reward work performance.”

He argues that if employers recognise where the performance limits lie, then they will avoid frustrating employees who do not reflect best efforts. These findings should push human resource departments in various companies to reconsider their performance

and reward systems. The researchers suggest that this starts by recognising biological limits then coming up with different ways to motivate their employees rather than pressure and monetary rewards. These two forms, they say, could be the wrong tools for the job.