Please rate the issue essay
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23 Oct 2010, 21:07
“Monetary compensation is the most powerful stimulus for improving employee productivity.”
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the position stated above. Support your viewpoint using reasons and examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
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Some people argue that money is the most powerful stimulus for improving employee productivity, while many others argue that there are several other factors which employees look for in their jobs other than money. I whole heartedly believe that there are many factors such as passion, challenge involved in the work, team support, exemplary managers that help in improving the employee productivity.
Firstly, in my opinion the single most important factor which contributes to an employee's productivity is his/her passion. A passion of an individual helps an employee to take that extra step which is needed for the success of the projects. Consider the example of Google CEOs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. These individuals were doctorate students who started Google out of a friends garage. At the time when they started this company, they didn't knew that it will grow to a level where it will be the biggest search engine. The driving factor for them was their passion and belief in developing a news product and what we have today is Google. So in essence, money follows when a person is willing to follow their heart, passion and drive to innovate a new product.
Secondly, the drive and passion is true not only for people who take the route of innovating something new. It works in the similar manner for employee of any company. The more they are passionate about the work, the more they would come up with ways of improving the existing products or processes. These, in turn, would benefit the company in terms of newer innovative products, streamlined processes and increased cost efficiency. All this would improve the position of the company and the employee contributing to this success will be given bonuses and recognitions.
Additionally, Has anyone ever considered as to how an employee will react to reduced bonuses, pay cuts in a bad economy? Suppose an employee of a company is driven primarily by monetary benefits. Since most of the companies go through periods of good and bad economic conditions, the employees of the companies who are primarily driven by money will either end up leaving the company for better paying positions or they will start working so that they meet minimum goals. The result of this kind of behavior will go a long way in hurting the competitive position of the company.
I do acknowledge the fact that since each and every person wants to live an extremely comfortable life along with the best things which he/she can get, they do desire a good pay. In certain cases, people have mortgages, college funds and other financial responsibilities to fulfill because of which they end up leaving the jobs when the company which they work for doesn't do well and is unable to fulfill the financial needs. However, for most of the people monetary compensation holds a relatively lower position when it comes to job satisfaction.
In conclusion, for a significant number of people monetary compensation is an important factor when they take up a job opportunity. However, passion and drive are the two main factors which determine how successful a person will be in his/her job and money always follows such people. Hence, I will always weigh monetary compensation as a secondary factor for improving employee productivity.
I will truly appreciate a feedback on this essay.