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Q What sort of bonuses should we pay

Written by: Seth Godin

Article Overview: A. "It's not about the money." Usually, when people say this, they are lying. Except, it turns out, at work.

Q What sort of bonuses should we pay

A. "It's not about the money."

Usually, when people say this, they are lying.

Except, it turns out, at work.

Money, it's been shown time and time again, is a demotivator. I'm not talking about a fair or even generous salary. Being a cheapskate is no way to find a great employee. But once people have joined your team, incremental money--bonuses and the like--usually demotivate people. They demotivate because sooner or later, people feel as though they're being treated unfairly.

One guy gets a $10 bonus. The person sitting next to him seethes for weeks, while the bonusee forgets it soon enough.

A sales rep gets into a fight about a commission... and remembers it long after the moment is gone.

People who really and truly love their jobs are in every single industry. And people who do great work because they love their jobs are paid at every salary level. What they have in common is a boss that gives them respect and freedom and responsibility. A boss that listens when they have something to say. Which, not coincidentally, is exactly the way the best companies treat their customers, too.

Cutting your prices doesn't build customer loyalty, and paying a bonus doesn't build employee loyalty.

If I had money to spend on a bonus, Mr. question writer, I would invest it in allowing each of my employees to try a small project (Google style) with no strings attached. Giving fairly-paid people your trust and the freedom to grow is worth a lot more than $50.

[n.b. all bets are off when the topic is sharp-edged salespeople. Just as some stores (woot, for example) work hard to attract the money-focused shopper, there are some jobs where a razor-sharp commission structure is exactly what your people--and you--want.]

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Article Tags: bets, bonus, boss, cheapskate, commission structure, customer loyalty, demotivate, demotivator, employee loyalty, freedom and responsibility, generous salary, google, jobs, money, salary level, sales rep, salespeople



Related Forum Posts
Does Giving Away Too Much Cheapen Your Product? - I have had occasion, over the last few days, to read five ebooks on a certain subject, and examine each of these ebook's websites. And its interesting.... Each of these books is sooo poorly written. They're all on weight training, and I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that they were all ghosted....there's a lot of puffery among the text, none of the books text is justified, a couple are poorly designed, etc. (I"m tempted to email the men who put their names to these things and offer my services as a "book doctor") But the main thing is their website, where they sell their book. Each website is a verrrrry long sales letter, advertising the book and then the 15-20 free bonuses they get if they buy. And after they get through listing these 15-20 bonuses they always say somethign like, "These bonuses alone are worth $1,300, and you're getting them, free! And I'm thinking...how can they afford to give away $1,300 worth of material? In one sense, of course, it doesn't cost anything - it's PDFs, audio, and video that one downloads from the web, so it's not like they had to pay major money to get these things produced physically, but still, if I'd actually had to pay for any of these things, and I'd seen that, I'd wonder, why are they offering all this stuff for free? Does my reaction make sense? ANother thing they do is discount the very book itself. It used to be $200, then it's $140, now its at a low low price of $77.... and if you attempt to navigate away from the website without buying anything , you get a popup that says, for a limited time, you can buy it all for $19.99!
Not Sure But... - Isn't there some sort of BTB auction website that you can pitch this sort of thing - I can't help you with where or what it is - just something in the back of my mind...
Re: Does Giving Away Too Much Cheapen Your Product? - Most of the ebooks being sold and most of the bonuses that come with them can be picked up for next to nothing if you look hard enough. I personally wouldn't buy anything for a website which was designed like a long sales letter.
Re: Best incentive to offer employees - [quote="Evan":31y2csyt]What's the best incentive to offer employees? Is it more health benefits? More vacation? Health club memberships? Paying for training? Cash / non-cash bonuses & rewards? I'm preparing a new package for my company and would love to get your thoughts! Thank you in advance![/quote:31y2csyt] A tough part of this is that different people have different needs. I used to work at a local hospital and we had great benefits, but there were a number of things I just never used. Is it possible to offer several different options? I'm thinking kind of like a cafeteria style insurance plan where you pick the benefits that you need. The initial planning would be a pain, but that way the employees would each be able to chose the benefits that fill their personal and/or family needs. You could also make a list of the sort of things you are thinking about and send out a survey to get thoughts from your people. See what they need and would respond to. Shri
Re: Gap Between Rich and Poor Widens - It will take along time in my opinion for the gap between the rich and the poor to reduce. Big high rolling bankers keep getting bonuses whilst much of the population is struggling to keep their jobs.


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