Pay for Performance LO21153

Vana Prewitt (vana@PraxisLearning.org)
Sun, 04 Apr 1999 09:58:36 -0400

Replying to LO21137 --

"Birren, David E" wrote:

> >> Any system that doesn't pay for performance has drawbacks.

...snip...

> . "Pay" can mean many things to many people,

This rhymes with my own perspective. Pay among the technology crowd I
live and work with in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, is not
nearly as rewarding as opportunities to learn and grow professionally.
Only those who are learning continuously have the competitive edge. So
what if you make $75,000 a year now? In 6 months, you could be
antiquated.

The other motivator I constantly come across is autonomy. Professionals
want to have very clear boundries, a "box to play in", and an
understanding of what really and truly is "outside the box". Then they
want to be left alone to get the job done.

In order to give that type of leadership to an employee, managers have to
put in some serious work to consider how many ways the employee could go
astray without supervision. If this upfront work is done, and the
employee has a well constructed job definition, they can use their
individual creativity, ingenuity, and ability to adapt to meet whatever
needs arise without suffering through some bureaucratic nightmare.

Above all other recruitment strategies for tekkies, I find this one the
most alluring. They cannot tolerate some half-informed manager breathing
down their back and second-guessing their choices. This is one reason why
working from home is becoming a major movement among computer programmers.
Give that to them and they will gladly cut their wages.

I would really call it incent and reward for performance.

kind regards,

Vana Prewitt
Praxis Learning Systems
www.PraxisLearning.org

-- 

Vana Prewitt <vana@PraxisLearning.org>

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