Let’s say your employer tells you that you will be receiving a bonus. That feels good, not just because of the money, but also because it’s an indication that your job performance is simply excellent. Or is it?
More than a quarter of the one hundred and twenty employers surveyed by the human relations consulting firm Willis Towers Watson indicate that they supply performance-based bonuses to employees who fail to meet expectations. As reported by Bloomberg, the survey also uncovered rampant grade inflation for performance reviews.
Most managers rate underperforming workers as either meeting or exceeding expectations. Here’s the issue. For many salaried employees, bonuses have turned into an expected addition to their income rather than a reward for performance.
That sort of mentality renders bonuses sort of useless as a motivational tool. So it’s no surprise that only twenty percent of employers participating in the survey say that merit pay results in higher levels of individual performance. It also means that top performers are being rewarded at roughly the same level as underachievers.
