Today's newspaper carries an Associated Press story of a study conducted
by Professor Michael Marmot of the International Center for Health and
Society at University College, London,on the risk of heart disease among
British civil servants. Persons in the lowest graded jobs were at 50
percent higher risk of heart disease than persons in the highest grades.
The study looked at the effect of smoking, inactivity, high blood pressure
and the feeling of loss of control. The feeling of low control was
reported by 8.7% of men and 10.1% of women at the highest grades, while at
the lowest grades the figures were 77.9% for men and 75.3% for women.
When researchers adjusted to discount the effect of feeling out of
control, the increased risk of heart disease among low-graded workers
dropped to just 18 percent - making the feeling of low control the largest
single risk factor identified in the study.
So perhaps Kohn was understating the issue with his book title, PUNISHED
by Rewards. It could have been MURDERED by rewards. Gives new meaning to
the term *Capital Punishment*. As a compensation consultant who has spend
the past 20 years designing reward systems, the news on this correlation
is a bit discomforting.
--Roxanne Abbas Abbas Compensation Strategies rabbas@comp-web.com http://www.comp-web.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>