When talking about corporate gift incentives, motivation is the buzzword. What motivational techniques can a manager use? Motivation is so complex and individualized that there can be no single best answer. Money can never be overlooked as a motivator and as a matter of fact can be a very good tool for corporate gift incentives. Whether in the form of wages, piecework (getting paid for units produced at a certain quality level) or any other incentive pay, bonuses, stock options, company-paid insurance or any of the other things that may be given to people for performance, money is important. According to economists and most managers money has a very high value on the scale of motivators. First, money, as money, is likely to be important to people who are raising a family, for example, than to people who have arrived in the sense that their money needs are not so urgent. Money is an urgent means of achieving a minimum standard of living, although this minimum has a way of getting higher as people become more affluent. Second, it is probably quite true that in most kinds of businesses and other enterprises money is used as a means of keeping an organization adequately staffed and not primarily as a motivator. Various enterprises make wages and salaries competitive within their industry and their geographic area to attract and hold people. If money is to be an effective motivator, people in various positions, even though at a similar level, must be given salaries and bonuses that reflect their individual performance. Even if a company is committed to the practice of comparable wages and salaries, a well managed firm need never be bound to the same practice with respect to bonuses. In fact, it appears that unless bonuses for managers are based to a major extent on individual performance, an enterprise is not buying much motivation with them. The way to ensure that money has meaning, as a reward for accomplishment and as a way of giving people pleasure from accomplishment, is to base compensation as much as possible on performance. |
