Think of a situation where you (or someone you know) engaged in a set of behaviors and compensation may have been a motivating factor. Some examples – accepted or declined a job offer, left a job, or decreased effort. Why do you think compensation motivated that behavior? What was it about the compensation that led you (or the other person) to behave that way?
When I worked on a farm harvesting fruit I would get paid based on how much fruit I harvested. The process would go in the form of me harvesting the fruit and putting it into a variety of containers. After filling all of them, I would take them to be weighed and they would mark the amount of pounds I picked on a specially designed card. My paycheck would be based on the pounds I picked multiplied by price of the day. This price would vary depending on how much work was available and what stage of harvesting we were in. When I was doing it the prices would range from $0.18/lb. up to $1.00/lb. but again that was up to the company and how much fruit there was on the trees. In order for me to get better compensation I would engage in behaviors such as waking up earlier to work longer and I attempted to work a lot faster than I would if the wage was hourly. I would also turn in containers with generally less quality fruit because I was trying to go as fast as possible and my pay wouldn’t change based on how cleanly I was picking. Generally more fruit would also end up on the ground and go to waste because everyone was moving quickly and knocking their arms or bodies into the branches of the trees.
Compensation motivated these behaviors working faster and in a more messy fashion generated more income. It would be by a significant amount too. I remember trying to be clean at the beginning but then I looked at my coworkers and saw the difference in weight picked. It became very discouraging so I started imitating their techniques. I went from making $100 dollars in like 6 hours to making nearly $220 in that same amount of time. I suppose it wasn’t just the money part though because I was also motivated by being faster than my coworkers and clearing out my work before they did. Healthy competition can really improve production if it’s implemented well.
Well in this case, a lot of the employees were immigrants with low working experience and low paying jobs. This work was their opportunity to make more money per hour by giving forth their best effort and not by gaining more knowledge in a different job. Also, if they worked fast enough then they could harvest fruit in the morning, make good money, then go work in a different job in the afternoon. I didn’t see it personally but I have heard of teens who harvest fruit in the morning and then go to school so that’s another reason to work quickly.
