Carrot or the stick?
What works for you ?
What works for your children?
Call it what you will, incentives are what get people to work harder.
– Nikita Khrushchev
Management bosses drive their teams with alternate use of both.
Insurance agents get lifelong percentage, from the premium paid by their customers.This encourages their tremendous enthusiasm to make you buy those policies.
Shopping at Shoppers Stop Pantaloons Big Bazaar helps us get points on our store cards . Encouraging us to shop more at those stores.
Not using a helmet can lead to serious head injury while accidents and fine if caught. Unfortunately the first one rarely stopped people in this small town.But surprisingly after increase of the fine for helmet less travel ,more people wear this ,to protect their not so important head.
This led me to think deeply about what motivates me.
When I was a little girl .My mom used to tell us stories of all the places we would visit once money was not an issue. How to make that possible?
For middle class families the best way to plan that is to study hard and get a great job.
I followed the plan to a T .But I wanted to be a doctor. For as long as I could remember,I wanted to be a doctor.
Probably a childhood wish of making my father better ,who suffered from swinging moods of MDP.
Whatever the reason I did become a doctor and I would recommend it to anyone ,who wants a chance to make the world a better place .
Life is comfortable and you feel good when you help people.
That’s when I realized the truth about why people do what they do.
At the end of the day ,we all want to make a difference. We all want to feel important. We all want to create value. If that comes with a good life ,that’s the cherry on the cake.So for people to do what you want ,they must feel a need .
A need for something.Once they start doing it ,it becomes a habit.
To get them started, incentives can go a long way.
The Governments Kanyashree and Ladli all promise money, when the girl child is educated.Shouldn’t a better life following education be prize enough ?
Unfortunately no.That’s why the cash helps.Incentives help in many places where goodness of the heart or sensibility of mind doesn’t seem to find a place.
Incentives also increase enthusiasm .It helps create a happy dedicated workforce. If great work gets you rewards ,doesn’t that create impetus for awesome results?
In fact rewards have been used in this study to help stop smoking.
In this study incentive helped physicians give better quality care for diabetes patients.Sounds weird right. But healthcare is the perfect place for a reward based programme.
Health insurance premiums are distinctly lower ,for healthy people with normal weight and no history of smoking .
In this study with 704 participants found, that with difficult tasks , performance based incentives work better.Tasks are completed more with performance based incentive than any other.
So what the truth about incentives?
They work .
Most of the time.
But at other times the stick may work.
What works for you?Comment below to let me know.
Nice aartical
Thanks Tahir
I remembered my childhood days by reading this post. I used to get both. My parents would say if I get good marks, I can buy something new. It kind of became a habit later. Every time when I needed something, I would study more and more. I got the stick as well. But lets us just stick to the good memories for now 😛
Yes incentives work. But what is the limit. After sometime the expectation increases but performance does not.
Incentives do drive us humans, thoughtful article Amrita. So many avenues and ideas are covered here. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you
Incentives can be an incredibly powerful motivator. Great points!
Ken,
Blogger’s Pit Stop
Thanks Ken
It is true!!! That’s what makes me work harder. Shine something shinny in front of me and I will be your very best worker lol
Very true
I totally agree that incentives work. I’ve used them in the past when I managed people to help motivate my employees to meet goals or a particular deadline.
Thank you ????
I wholeheartedly believe in incentives. They totally work, in my opinion. I work with two different teams and time and time again they always perform at a higher standard when a reward is offered…
Thank you ????
I think that Incentives can help employers reinforce with employees. Used effectively, incentives help build employee motivation and engagement.
Definitely agree that incentives work! I use them all the time for my husband and myself 🙂
Thank you ????
I have heard a lot of critical things about me incentivizing my students in the classroom. We’ve set up a classroom store and they earn fake “bucks” throughout the week and get to use their bucks to go “shopping” for prizes on Friday. At the end of the day, it works. My kids like to be incentivized. It makes my life easier. It makes their life happier. They make an enormous amount of gains and they ARE actually invested in their academic growth. We, as adults need to be incentivized. Why do we deny our kiddos the same thing?
Absolutely true .Thank you ???? for reading.
I agree that incentives definitely work. I for one always reward myself for doing things I’d rather not be doing. My favorite incentive is usually food. lol
Thanks for reading,
Incentives are great and our children learn motivation by watching us and implementing it young! It is also learning that disappointment can be the best motivator to spur us on to great success! Great post!
Glad you found it helpful.
Some incentives do work more then others. I would like a paycheck at the end of the week but a bonus is a nice extra incentive. I am still trying to figure out incentives for kids because most of those are short lived.
Hee hee .Very true.
I believe if you want something accomplished, use incentive. People will be much happier if they feel they will get something back in return for their hard work
Very true.Thanks for reading.
I think incentives work great when they are the right incentives. I have yet to find ones that motivate my kids to clean up.
Thanks for reading.
I agree, incentives do tend to work. That is awesome that they can stop smoking. My dad smoked for YEARS but was able to quit…mostly because his grandson kept asking him why he liked black lungs and he started to feel bad.
Thanks for reading.
Thanks for joining the #HappySunday Linky party Amritha! Loved hosting you dear. Foe me the only thing that matters is whether I feel comfortable with what I do or not. In this one life I want to bring about a small change towards goodness!
Thanks Menaka.
Some good incentives become motivational factors
Thanks for reading.
Incentives works. Its a reward system that even a child can simply understand. And there is nothing wrong about it. It makes the work and communication much easier 🙂
Thanks for reading.
This post makes so much sense, Amritha. Yes, we all want to make a difference at the end of the day.
Thanks Malins. YES we want to make a difference.