Before when I worked at a car dealership, we had these weekly events randomly pop up where we could potentially earn more money that week on our check if it meant selling a car on a certain day or at a certain time. They also stacked a lot which led to lots of extra income coming in for any dealership sales associate making the rounds. However, in the weeks in which we did not have these events, motivation would bottom up, especially for a few of my co-workers who already earned less, they would be barely able to pay any bills. Money was their motivating factor, but without any real chance to earn lots of it fast in those spiffs, they would have if not little to no motivation working at the dealership. I think compensation motivated them out of sheer necessity, this is because, in all honesty, they did not make much, so taking away what little they had every week must have been taxing on their mental health. In the end, I cannot blame them for why their motivation tanked, I would have acted the same way too if I barely got by, it felt like a large insult. Another example that comes to mind for decreased effort is when one time at my current job chipotle we had the tip jar full for a lot of the shifts in a row, this led to a lot of happiness and encouraged good behavior/hard-working attitude. We then stopped getting tips for a while and let our quality of service decrease as we felt it did not matter at all.