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Nonmonetary Incentives and the Implications of Work as a Source of Meaning (aeaweb.org)
From a research paper [PDF]: Many workers care about more than financial compensation in their job. Nonmonetary incentives often matter, too. A firm's mission and the design of one's job can create meaning and purpose for employees. As a result, firms will have reason to care about meaning of work. We believe economists can usefully contribute to the debate about the implications of meaningful work. We are not arguing that financial compensation is unimportant. Lazear (in this volume) provides an excel- lent review of monetary incentives in certain organizations. But we believe that in order to manage modern organizations and understand the future of work, studying workers' nonmonetary motives will be crucial.
Good managers are rewarded for retaining and motivating people without paying them anything else. (Early in my career I was told by managers that I was "hard to read" or that "they weren't sure what fired me up"; that made the "f u pay me" conversation easier.)
outside the top 10-15% of jobs. I mean, we have nurses striking because their pay is too low, something I don't think I've seen in 30+ years.
This would be an interesting conversation if we had single payer healthcare. More so if we had basic income. In other words if all or a majority of people had their basic needs met. But in a country where 45,000 people die every year and overtime pay isn't guaranteed anymore this comes off as a bunch of managers trying to figure out how they get can 80 hours of value for 40 hours pay.
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Compensation is important.
But as they say, find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
Getting paid a few percent more to go to a job I hate? No thanks.
So long as I get nonmonetary incentives in addition to sufficient monetary incentives, I'll keep working.
When the conversation changes to instead of, my choice of employer will also change to instead of.
Why is it so difficult for economists to acknowledge that people may and do derive value from things other than money?
The do acknowledge non-monetary incentives, and this is a fashionable focus of economic research. They just have difficulty building models that accurately predict behavior.
If the only thing in life you can see any value in is money, I feel sorry for you, because you'll never be satisfied. Money is only a means to an end. If you chase money as though it were the end until itself, you'll be forever chasing, trying to get more money in order to finally be satisfied. But no amount of money is ever enough, because it doesn't provide satisfaction, contentment.
Just look at all the multi-millionaire stars of stage and screen who have committed suicide, or otherwise ruined their lives. They've had tons of money, yet life was so empty death seemed the only way out.
Or perhaps you didn't notice the summary says people value non-monetary things TOO. Nobody said money isn't useful, and even important. They said it's not the only thing that is important.
I could switch jobs and earn probably 50% more, at least 35% more easily. I don't do that because money isn't the only thing important to me. Time with my family is important. My job provides me important time with my family in multiple ways. They let me work from home, so I can have breakfast with my daughter instead of sitting in traffic. They give me time off no questions ask whenever I need it. Actually last week I tried to ask my boss if it was cool for me to take the next day off and he couldn't even understand how that was a question. If I wanted to take a day to go to the water park with my family, that was 100% up to me - I just needed to tell him, not ask him. They respect my work hours vs home hours and don't expect me to be working at 8PM.
My boss and my company treat me with respect. They ask me "are you okay with doing it this way?", or even "how do you think we should it?", rather than dictating from on high.
Our company had a conversation about what we want to do to improve the world. We don't want to sell just another product like the others, that doesn't really benefit anyone. We want to do something different, something we can believe in as our work doing a little something to make the world a slightly better place.
A year ago I thought I might have to switch jobs because I wasn't sure I could trust my new boss. I don't want to work for someone I don't trust. That matters to me. It turns out he has earned some trust, so I'm still there. Trust and honestly matters.
For many years I ran my own businesses, with a few employees. I work for a much larger, much more stable, company now, because stability matters. It gives me peace of mind. (For further peace of mind, I also have a backup, another large, stable company I could switch to if needed).
My job let's me learn and grow, working on different things, and gives me some flexibility in what I want to work on. Learning and growing are important to me.
I could go on and on, but you get the gist.
40 hours per week out of 168 is for work.
That's bull, most tech jobs will usually call you afterhours, except you to do over time, etc. etc.
The trade off is that capitalism
I get it, you really like capitalism and you are butthurt over what I said. Well, let me give you a stick and a carrot:
Stick - Germany is not like the soviet union, it is a country where workers have basic rights, where people have a public health system, and yet it is not a hellhole like the soviet union. Hell, I'm Israeli, which likely makes you think I am living in a war zone, but I still feel safer here, knowing that even though there's a chance that I will be assaulted by a terrorist (a very low chance, much higher chance to die in a car accident), there is a public health system (with flaws) that will take care of me if I become sick.
Carrot - You think that I'm some kinda crazy leftist? Look again at what I wrote, "INDIVIDUALIST capitalist" societies, nations and families. The left has a responsibility here too, it insisted on ruining traditional structures without reallly providing something else in return except for "do what you want".
Look, I think that every culture has its big mistakes. For many past cultures, that mistake is believing in god, or thinking that the earth is flat, or something like that. For our culture, I think it is the belief that the individual is purely rational, that we can trust his feelings and thoughts because in our base, we are rational beings. Well, I don't think so, I think that we are all prone to irrationalities, I don't think we have 50 genders and I also don't think we should all be allowed free access to guns. It's not a matter of hero capitalists against monster communists, it's a matter of finding the balance between lots of choices, most of them are shitty. Hell, maybe we're bound to fail just because our brains are not good enough for the task of being civilized, history seems to hint in that direction.
Just, don't be naive, don't think that the current system is without flaws, it is, and it has room for improvement.
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This is so not true, money isn't everything. How short sighted and narrow minded can you be? I'm not in for the money.
I'm in for the stock options.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I can well exist without social structures
This, this is our century's crazy illusion, just like "the earth is flat" of the past. A man connected to the internet, who lives in a society of millions who provide him with utilities every day, says that he can exist without social structures. Dude, I am sure that there are people who can exist without social structures. Let me give you a hint, they don't comment on slashdot.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
I've often said that there are three criteria that I weigh when looking at a job:
What will I be doing? Is the work interesting, challenging, exciting, boring?
Where will I be doing it? Is it someplace where I want to live? Are there interesting things about that area? If it's already in the area, how much of a nuisance is it to get to work? A 10 minute commute? An hour? Two hours? Is there mass transit?
How much will I be getting paid to do it? Will I be able to support myself?
For example, if you want me to work on accounting software in North Dakota, you're going to have to pay me a lot more than if I was working on robotics in North Dakota or working on accounting software in southern California (though obviously cost of living comes into play).
So, at least for me, it isn't purely money. Yes, I want to be paid adequately. I don't want to have to eat ramen noodles 5 days a week so that I can pay rent. If my car breaks down, I want to be able to get it fixed and not have to pinch pennies for the rest of the month until I get a paycheck. But I'm willing to sacrifice some extra money to work on interesting things.
look at all the options someplace like the Soviet Union offered its citizens.
Ah yes, because there are only two possibilities, either good ol' freedom loving USA, or nasty Soviet Union. There's no way there could be any other kind of society.
That sounds horrible. I would quit a job like that. I want vacation with family and friends with my bonus, not vacation with co-workers.
This is an example of different people having different values and preferences. I very much encourage my co-workers to call me, for a number of reasons.
At my job, we each have our own area of expertise and responsibility. Especially with my 20 years of both experience and constant study, there are certain things which are very much in my domain and either I care very much how it's done, or I have significantly more knowledge or experience about a certain thing (such as about code that I wrote).
I very much value efficiency, getting a good value, more bang for the buck. Therefore it bugs me when I find out that someone spent 8 hours trying to figure out something I could have told them in four minutes. I'd much rather answer their call - I'm probably driving (Bluetooth) or sitting at some social gathering I don't care about anyway, so their call is a welcome break from the boredom. It's just far more efficient to ask me, sometimes.
Other times, I've come back from being gone, or just from concentrating on other work, and found that a co-worker has made a big mess which could have been avoided with a five-minute conversation, because they were stretching too far outside their limits*.
Sometimes I have to clean up their mess. Other times the situation doesn't allow me to clean it up, so I have to live with their mess. I'd rather take the phone call.
I'm ALSO able to say "I'm a bit busy right now, but I can call you back in two hours", or even "I'm going to have to work with you on that when I get back to the office. There are some traps there that might bite you, so it might be a good idea to wait."
I can totally understand people not wanting you be disturbed though!
* In my experience there is a "right" amount of stretching one's abilities. Just like with physical fitness, fitness experts tell us to stretch our muscles, but don't stretch so far that it hurts - pain indicates damage. I'm not saying people should never do more than they've done before. Studies in education indicate learning happens when people go just a little beyond what they know well - not when they are in deep over their head.
Same here. Part of my work-life balance is to spend my free time with people I don't work with.
I just want money.
You are likely motivated by non-monetary factors more than you realize. My company used to give semi-annual bonuses, and then decided to redirect that money toward "adventures". We had a company river rafting trip, went skydiving, hot air ballooning, and skiing. We sent many of the programmers on a "coding cruise" to Alaska. The result was better retention, better morale and camaraderie, and easier recruitment.
We're going hang gliding next month.
Extreeeeeme! (sorry, 90s flashback there)
Those trips might be a tad tough for me; I have a disabled child and my wife has herself become disabled. I ain't going anywhere.
If I worked there, could I perhaps just have the money? (Or is it maybe soft age discrimination?)
That sounds horrible. I would quit a job like that. I want vacation with family and friends with my bonus, not vacation with co-workers.
A million time yes. We spend more time with co-workers than anyone else in our lives just by being in the office... why would I want to spend any more time with them, nomatter how cool they might happen to be?