Take some time to think about the incentives that mold behavior in the workplace.
The author has defined three types of incentives economic, social and moral. We can approach the workplace incentives from two perspectives. The first perspective is from Frederick Herzberg’s Hygiene factors point of view. Herzberg rationalized that the factors causing satisfaction are different from those causing dissatisfaction. The determination of causality is based on employee interviews.
Following are the Hygiene factors causing dissatisfaction:
1. Salary
2. Work conditions(Cafeteria)
3. Company policy
4. Relations with Boss(Expats)
5. Peer relationships
6. Transport
7. Air conditioning
The following Motivator factors cause satisfaction รจ
1. Achievement
2. Recognition (WOW you work at xxyy firm)
3. Work (BPO, Coding, Consulting, Client facing work)
4. Responsibility (compared to other Indian firms)
5. Growth(Manager, Sr. Manager, Partner)
Economic Incentives that mold behavior in the workplace are more similar to hygiene factors, the absence of which causes dissatisfaction, but the factors themselves do not provide satisfaction:
1. Salary
2. Bonus
3. Perks
Social Incentives and Moral incentives on the other hand provide psychological gratification and are called motivators in Herzberg’s language. Following are the social incentives:
1. Recognition
2. Dinner with the boss
3. Important assignments
4. Interesting work
The second perspective or Maslow’s Hierarchy of human needs is evolutionary and involves redefinition of most important needs and wants of an employee as the basic needs like food, security and sex get satisfied at different salary thresholds. Somebody introduced purchasing power parity and wrecked the whole thing. The cost of milk is same in United States as in India. India is the land of low cost, so apartments with basic necessities are much cheaper. Electricity is subsidized by the government and so does not add up to the GDP. Even with subsidized electricity, the weather is so good that air conditioning is not a hygiene factor at home, but is a hygiene factor at work. Jumping to an interesting topic, of course the thresholds for sex are different for better looking employees. The threshold for sex is different in closed cultures like India where arranged marriage is the norm.
Moral Incentives like community work allow the employee to claim higher ground and is a win-win for the employer and the employee.
Moral Incentives can be considered to be on the peak of Maslow’s Pyramid:
1. Community work
2. Good Audit leading to greater transparency
3. Helping Clients and Economy do better
4. Recognition of Honesty
5. Evidence of no Dishonesty ( Borrowed from Nassim Taleb’s N.E.D)
It’s a pity that knowledge is not able to root out corruption. Erudite people in the middle belly of India are lacking the workplace incentives to deliver governance. By falsification, the absence of dishonesty or no evidence of dishonesty does not mean Evidence of no dishonesty. It is the lack of a measure or mitigating influence like cameras in public offices which lead to no evidence of dishonesty. The presence of a camera might lead to shifting of graft from office premises and employment of more middlemen.
In a perverse sort of way, the gratification from community work is much more in India, where there is so much work to do, so much poverty to alleviate by primary education and improving governance.
