Tips for Determining a Motivating Salary

Saturday February 9, 2008

During this year when political events so frequently headline the news of the day, I received this letter from a reader. It would appear that the state for which he works took several good ideas and implemented them in such as way as to devalue and demotivate employees. We can all learn lessons from my reader email. Unfortunately, they often highlight "what not to do."

"I enjoyed your article today about new ways companies are handling compensation, i.e not giving under- and over-performers the same raise. However, I saw problems in one state government when they implemented a pay for performance compensation program. It became nothing more than a political patronage program. While Republicans were in power, Republican employees got raises; when Democrats were in power, Democrat employees got raises.

"Also, the rewards were always budget driven. Supervisors (including me at the time) were told what percentage of employees could be awarded performance bonuses, based on revenues available for that year. Most performance raises were so small as to be meaningless. This system is still in place, and ends up being a real de-motivator for the majority of employees rather than rewarding good performance as it was originally intended.

"I enjoy your articles and refer to them frequently. Ted"