For this week’s blog post I will be writing about a time that compensation was a motivating factor in my behavior. It is always interesting to look at why we make the decisions we do and what outside factors influence those choices. When I was in high school I worked as a waitress at this restaurant on a golf course. I absolutely loved working there because all my fellow employees were very friendly and I made good money in tips. The one aspect of the job that I didn’t love was working with finicky customers. Since the restaurant was on a golf course we catered to a certain demographic of people. To be quite frank, these types of people were older wealthy white men. They were very specific about the service they required and it could be tiring trying to fulfill everyone’s needs. I worked very hard at the restaurant and put a lot of time and effort into giving my customer’s the best experience possible. I smiled and acted as engaged and enthusiastic as possible. This was because I got to keep all of the tips I made. I found that the better service I provided, the more the guests were likely to tip me. This is the clearest example I have of a time where my behaviors were motivated by the financial compensation. I was trying to save money for college so I was very invested in acting like the ideal server. When looking through this week’s learning materials, it is clear that monetary compensation falls under the category of extrinsic rewards since it is a tangible direct form of compensation (Lecture 1: Introduction to Compensation).
Source:
Module 6 – Lecture 1: Introduction to Compensation