LO members,
Ref. Roxannes' comments on heart attacks and Punished by Rewards snip:
Kohn maintains that the practice of using rewards is *at it's core,
neither more nor less than a way of trying to control people.* Today's
newspaper carries an Associated Press story of a study...on the risk of
heart disease among British civil servants.
I had seen the same study and thought almost the opposite: That the
people who are getting the fewest rewards (financial and otherwise) as
they are lowest on the 'status pole' are most at risk for the larger
punishment (heart attack). This study report confirmed other studies I
have seen about low-control, low-status, low-paid positions with higher
heart attack rates. While I do not think that higher pay/
recognition/reward will compensate for low control, I do think that it
could mitigate some of the other problems and thus reduce the negative
consequences.
Perhaps this is because much of my HR experience is in software -where
every employee tells you it is cutting edge technology and growth and
creativity that they want while also demanding sign-on bonuses, incentive
comp, and equity.....
My thanks to all of you who are reading and writing about Punished by
Rewards. It was too long ago that I read it and did nought else as my
brain argued that it was a nice theory but not for the real world....
Maybe this time I will get something useful out of it from this larger
view.
patria frame
Strategies for Human Resources StratHR4PF@aol.com
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>