Randon thought on "Incentive"

It's just an analysis of how our our thought process gets influenced by 'Incentives'. I tried to jot it down very briefly. It is focused mainly on professional life.

Incentive, in broad term is a driving force for people for taking decision, for choosing certain behavior in a particular situation. Since human beings are purposeful creatures they get easily influenced by incentives. At work place we find incentive as a very powerful driving force for many activities depending on the type of incentive.
Types of Incentives we generally find at workplace.

1. Overall remuneration plus Annual variable pay (Economic incentive)
2. Rewards & Recognition (Social incentive)
3. Verbal appreciation by superior (Moral incentive)
4. Promotion (Economic, Social and moral)
5. Benefits like Health insurance, saving schemes as part of payroll. (Economic incentive)

If we only analyze all types of incentives we find in work place we will see that all the incentives cited above have more or less effect on the behavior and decision making of all employees.
The first factor has its major effect on the taking the decision of accepting or rejecting a job offer, the most important decision. Second one has its effect mostly on the experienced, highly performing employees who are less bothered about monetary incentive.
Third one is effective on our day-to-day activities. If one is putting some extra effort to get one tough job done on time with 100% quality and not getting deserved appreciation, a negative influence starts affecting.
Promotion, again a factor that affects experienced, focused, good performer and leads them to take a decision like changing job when not given on time. Other benefits have less but sometimes very important influence on employees when somebody is in need of those benefits and not able to get it.
Although there are other varieties of incentives existing in the study of economics that mainly emphasiz on Economic or remunerative incentive because it is considered as most influential factor in the world of business, politics and any other field.
At work place, the picture of company’s overall revenue, profit, financial growth all these have always a major impact on the level performance of its employees. The better picture a company can provide and show in real, the better skilled employee they get and better performance they get them. So, it has almost a direct correlation of incentives and its influence.
Although few studies and empirical evidences indicated that these two factors are not directly correlated always, there are several factors, conditions that again affect the effect of economic incentive.
It is true that we all respond to moral, economic and social incentives. Even one’s behavior can be explained or be predicted by understanding the type incentive he/she gets in everyday life.
Even one type of incentive can replace other incentive depending on the change in organizational actions or environmental factors. As in the example of the Day-care Centre, when the late charge was introduced, the moral incentive was replaced with an economic incentive.
Every incentive can have positive and negative side of it. Often good people indulge in some malfunctioning just to get more incentive be it economic, social or moral. For example we can refer to the case of Sumo wrestlers of Japan or the school teachers in Chicago.
Overall as human being, we all are always very responsive to all types of incentive and the results get reflected from our behavior, decision making be it at work place, our home or anywhere.

If you feel it is thought provoking to some extend, then please don't forget to upvote. Thanks.