Influence of Team-Based Pay Structures on Team Members’ Performance and Motivation

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Goal accomplishment can be regarded as a primary objective of any team in an organization that works on a specific task. Most of organizations resort to team-based pay structure to encourage employees work harder because their salaries depend largely on the success of the goals accomplished. The point is that all members of the team receive similar incentive pay with no reward assigned to individual members for their greater contributions (Heneman, 2008).

Therefore, team-based pay is often criticized by both employees and their organizations for many reasons. To begin with, the given program can alleviate the spirit of competition, as well as discourage employees to work efficiently for reaching the company’s objectives. As a result, the competition inside the organization can be lost and the productivity level will also be reduced significantly (Heneman, 2008).

Social pressure and incentives for improvement will also be dismissed because each employee will impose some responsibilities on others because he/she will have to achieve similar goals (Heneman, 2008). Incentives for improvement will also be lost because of the absence of proper reward systems for individuals. In this respect, specific guiding principles should be implementing to strike the balance between the given pay system and the corrections to be introduced.

In order to restore the spirit of competition, Gross’ certain guiding principles should be used for instituting pay and reward structures. This is of particular concern to the second guiding principles, which runs “Balance the mix of individual and team-based pay” (Thompson, 2011, p. 54).

In particular, there should be a reasonable balance between group and individuals incentives to arrange a competitive environment and provide a basis for further inspirational and motivated work. For instance, there should a bonus scheme for employees to feel that their work is appreciated and there is always an opportunities for personal self-improvement and determination. For instance, organization should implement additional bonuses for group members, along with group rewards.

More importantly, there should two groups working under competition to encourage group goals accomplishment. The third methods postulates, “Consult with the team members who will be affected” and it should be introduced to provide a decision-sharing atmosphere in a team (Thompson, 2011, p. 55). In addition, managers should inform the team members about the actual process of project fulfillment so as they have an exact idea of how the pay structure is organized.

Finally, principle 8, which reveals “Determine how target levels of performance are established and updated”, is also indispensible to guaranteeing a high level of performance (Thompson, 2011, p. 57). In this respect, managers should define the correlation between goals accomplishment and its influence on team performance.

American teams are extremely task-oriented. However, their focus on task fulfillment does not always lead to successful project accomplishment. In order to achieve the highest results, team members should examine opposing ideas in a cooperative context to increase the team effectiveness and quality of problem solving and decision making (West, 2012).

In the majority of cases, task orientation does not contribute to adequate distribution of roles and positions. In this respect, failure to allocate resources and responsibilities can prevent from the goal accomplishment.

Hence, West (2012) argues, “team members should attempt to influence their colleagues towards a solution based on shared, rational understanding rather than attempted dominance” (p. 143). Task-orientation often prevents team members from establishing active decision sharing and open-mind way of expressing ideas. As a result, introvert orientation does not always contribute to high level of performance and effective teamwork.

Following the idea presented in Thompson (2011), that “team performance should focus on collective performance” (p.70), we can state that this “collective performance” leads to development of the adequate knowledge among the team members, which, in its turn, helps them develop the necessary skills and abilities. The adequate knowledge, skills and abilities are one of the most essential conditions that contribute to productive performance and successful cooperation.

Knowledge-based performance of the team creates more collaborative work and mutual understanding among the group members. It makes the group more productive and motivated. As a result, such a collaborative environment ensures that each member of the team is able to support or substitute another one provided one of them is not able to perform his/her responsibilities.

Interaction and active participation on goals accomplishment should not depend on the analysis of task performance. With regard to the above-highlighted problems and conditions, specific solutions should be implemented. In order to eliminate excessive task orientation, team members should be provided with bonuses for providing decision where the priority is made on a specific task fulfillment, but on the degree to which this task fulfillment contributes to the overall goal accomplishment (Salas et al., 2001).

Second, to encourage communication between members, top leaders should engage task that are distribution for more than one person (Salas et al., 2001). As a result, team members will increase the level of goal adherence. Finally, there should a distinguished distribution of roles and responsibilities where each team members should be involved in various level of project accomplishment. This is of particular concern to the necessity to introduce only one position for accomplishing a task.

Equal distribution of members for task accomplishment and goal orientation can solve the problem of extreme task management that is not always beneficial for project management in an organization. In such a manner, it is possible to keep track of the larger picture of event within a group (Salas et al., 2001).

There should also be a person who will be responsible for coordinating the process between two groups (Salas et al., 2001). Thus, expending a spectrum of responsibilities and positions can provide the team members with new opportunities for effective project management and group cooperation.

References

Heneman, R.L. (2008). Strategic Reward Management: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation. US: IAP.

Salas, E., Bowers, C. A., & Edens, E. (2001). Improving Teamwork in Organizations. US: Taylor & Francis.

Thompson, L.L. (2011). Making the team: A guide for managers (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

West, M. A. (2012). Effective Teamwork: Practical Lessons from Organizational Research. US: John Wiley & Sons.

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Influence of Team-Based Pay Structures on Team Members’ Performance and Motivation

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