Chapter Six:

Applied
Performance
Practices

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 Applied Performance Practices at Shopify
Shopify has a highly
motivated workforce, driven
by enriched jobs, rewards
aligned with the company’s
success, and employees with
strong self-leadership skills.

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 Meaning of Money at Work
Multiple perceptions and emotions concerning money
• Money ethic
• Money as a tool or drug
Gender differences—valued more by men
• Men—money is a symbol of power and status
• Women—money is instrumental (exchanged)
Cultural differences
• High power distance—money brings higher respect and
priority
• Nurturing cultures—less discussion or display of wealth
• Value of saving versus spending money

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 Rewarding Employees at Tiens Group
Chinese multinational
conglomerate Tiens Group
recently rewarded 6,400
employees (about half of its
workforce) with an all-
expenses-paid four-day trip
to France.

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 Membership- and Seniority-Based Rewards
Fixed wages, seniority-based
rewards
Advantages
• May attract job applicants
• Less financial insecurity
• Less turnover with seniority
Disadvantages
• No performance motivation
• Discourages poor
performers from leaving
• May act as golden handcuffs

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 Job Status-Based Rewards
Includes job evaluation and status perks
Advantages
• Job evaluation—more pay fairness, less pay discrimination
• Motivates competition for promotions
Disadvantages
• Encourages bureaucratic hierarchy
• Reinforces status versus an egalitarian culture
• Employees exaggerate duties, hoard resources

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 Competency-Based Rewards
Two types of competency rewards
• Competency-based pay bands–acquiring or demonstrating
competencies assigned to that pay group
• Skill-based—number of specific skill modules learned
Advantages
• Motivates learning new skills
• Multi-skilled, flexible, adaptive employees
• Higher product or service quality
Disadvantages of competency-based pay
• Overdesigned (complex)
• Potentially subjective
• Higher training costs

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 Performance-Based Rewards
Individual rewards
• Bonuses, piece rates, commissions
Team rewards
• Bonuses and gain-sharing plans
Organizational rewards
• Organizational bonuses, ESOPs, stock options, profit-sharing
Evaluating organizational rewards
• ESOPs and stock options create “ownership culture”
• Profit-sharing adjusts pay with firm's prosperity
• Problem: organizational rewards have weak P-to-O link

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 Improving Reward Effectiveness
• Link rewards to
performance
• Ensure rewards are
relevant
• Give team rewards for
interdependent jobs
• Ensure rewards are
valued
• Beware of unintended
consequences

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 Job Design
Assigning tasks to a job,
considering the
interdependency of those
tasks with other jobs

Organization's goal: design

jobs that can be performed
efficiently leaving
employees motivated and
engaged

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 Job Specialization and Scientific Management
Improves work efficiency
• Less time changing activities
• Jobs mastered more quickly
• Better person–job matching
Scientific management
• Frederick Winslow Taylor
• Championed specialization and
standardization
• Also popularized training, goal-
setting, incentives
Job specialization problems
• Low motivation
• Absenteeism and turnover
• Higher wages to offset tedium
• Work quality affected

©McGraw-Hill Education. Frederick Winslow Taylor / archive.org

 Job Characteristics Model

Jump to Appendix 1 long image description

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 Other Job Characteristics
Social characteristics of the job
• Task interdependence—social interaction with coworkers
• Feedback from others—from coworkers, clients, etc.

Information processing demands

• High task variability—job has nonroutine work patterns
• High task analyzability—uses known procedures or rules

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 Job Rotation at EYE Lighting International
Employees at EYE Lighting
International practice job
rotation. “The employees
love it because they don’t get
bored in their daily job,” says
the company president. Job
rotation also minimizes
repetitive strain injuries and
“allows us a tremendous
amount of flexibility” in work
assignments.

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 Job Rotation
Moving from one job to
another
Benefits
1. More skill variety, may
increase motivation and
satisfaction
2. Minimizes repetitive strain
injury
3. Multiskills the workforce

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 Job Enlargement
Adding tasks to an existing job
• Example: video journalist

Jump to Appendix 2 long image

description

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 Job Enrichment
Giving employees more responsibility for scheduling,
coordinating, and planning work
1. Natural grouping
• Stitching highly interdependent tasks into one job
• E.g., video journalist, assembling entire product

2. Establishing client relationships

• Direct responsibility for specific clients
• Direct communication with those clients

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 Dimensions of Empowerment
Self-determination Meaning
Employees believe they have Employees believe their work
freedom and discretion is important

Competence Impact
Employees have feelings of Employees believe their
self-efficacy actions influence success

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 Supporting Empowerment
Individual factors
• Possess required competencies, can perform the work, can
handle decision-making demands

Job design factors

• Autonomy, task identity, task significance, job feedback

Organizational factors
• Resources, learning orientation, trust

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 Self-Leadership
The process of influencing oneself to establish the self-
direction and self-motivation needed to perform a task

Includes concepts and practices from goal-setting,

social cognitive theory, and sports psychology

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 Elements of Self-Leadership (1 of 2)
1. Personal goal-setting
• Set goals for your own work effort
• Apply effective goal-setting practices
• Requires a high degree of self-awareness

2. Constructive thought patterns

• Self-talk – increases self-efficacy
• Mental imagery
- Mentally practicing a task and anticipating obstacles
- Visualizing successful task completion

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 Elements of Self-Leadership (2 of 2)
3. Designing natural rewards
• Finding ways to make the job more motivating
4. Self-monitoring
• Keeping track of one’s progress toward a self-imposed goal
• Using naturally occurring feedback
• Designing feedback systems
5. Self-reinforcement
• “Taking” a reinforcer only after completing a goal

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 Predictors of Self-Leadership
Individual factors
• Higher levels of conscientiousness and extroversion
• Positive self-evaluation (self-esteem, self-efficacy, internal
locus)

Organizational factors
• Job autonomy
• Participative and trustworthy leadership
• Measurement-oriented culture

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