PS392 Unit 6 Motivation and Performance Paper Example

Tons Per Hour or Clean Bales: A PS392 Unit 6 Motivation and Performance Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS392: Attitudes and Motivation in the Workplace

Unit 6 Motivation and Performance Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the recycling plant, the bonus proposal and every figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

The Proposal

In June, with fiber prices up, the plant manager at our Tucson recycling plant wanted more tons through the fiber line. The line averaged 16.4 tons an hour against a design rate of 18. His idea was simple: any shift that averaged 18 tons an hour or better would earn each sorter an extra $1.50 an hour for that shift. He asked me to review it before he took it to the regional director.

My concern was quality. The fiber line's speed is partly set by the sorters, who can ask the lead to slow the belt when material is heavy. A bonus tied only to tons gives every sorter a reason never to ask. Our contamination rate had just fallen to 2.6 percent, near the mill's limit, after months of work on feedback and meaningful work. A rejected bale costs more than an hour of bonus for the whole line.

Expectancy Theory

Vroom's expectancy theory treats effort as three beliefs multiplied together: that trying harder will produce the performance in question (expectancy), that the performance will bring the promised outcome (instrumentality) and that the outcome is worth having (valence). Van Eerde and Thierry (1996) brought together the studies testing the model. The separate pieces predicted effort and performance about as well as the full multiplied formula did, and the model predicted what people intended or preferred more strongly than what they actually did.

Even so, the three beliefs offer a useful checklist. Expectancy was shaky. Tonnage depends heavily on what arrives on the trucks: a load heavy with wet cardboard runs differently from one full of junk mail, and sorters cannot control that. Instrumentality was also uncertain. Two years ago, the plant had promised a safety bonus that was quietly dropped after one quarter, and several sorters mentioned it when the rumor of a new bonus spread. Valence was the one clear strength, since $1.50 an hour is about nine percent of base pay.

A bonus people doubt they can earn, from a company they doubt will pay it, buys less effort than its size suggests.

What Incentives Do and Do Not Buy

Cerasoli et al. (2014) analyzed four decades of studies, covering more than 200,000 people in school, work and sport, to see how intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives relate to performance. Intrinsic motivation predicted performance whether or not incentives were present, and it was the better predictor of quality. Incentives were the better predictor of quantity. When incentives were tied directly to the performance being measured, intrinsic motivation mattered less to how well people did.

That pattern describes the risk in the proposal. A tons-only bonus, tied directly to output, would likely raise quantity. It would also make the pull on quality weaker at the moment quality was improving, and on our line, quality is what the mill pays for.

Self-Determination Theory

Self-determination theory offers a way to think about why (Gagné & Deci, 2005). Self-determination theory separates kinds of motivation by how freely chosen they feel. At one end is motivation controlled entirely by outside rewards or pressure; at the other is motivation a person endorses because the work fits their values or because they find it interesting. Rewards are not automatically harmful, but they tend to undermine more autonomous motivation when people experience them as controlling, as pressure to behave in a particular way, rather than as acknowledgment of competence.

Since the mill visits began, many sorters have started talking about bale quality as something they own. A bonus framed as "go faster" risks turning that into a race against a number set by management.

An Alternative Design

I proposed four changes to the plant manager.

First, measure both quantity and quality. The bonus would require that a shift meet a tonnage target and keep fiber contamination at or below 2.5 percent for the pay period. A shift that runs fast and dirty earns nothing.

Second, set the target sorters can influence. Instead of a fixed 18 tons, the target would be 17.5 tons per hour of operating time, adjusted for loads the scale house flags as heavy with wet material. That raises expectancy by removing outcomes sorters cannot control.

Third, pay per pay period, by shift, and write it down. Paying on two weeks of results smooths out bad loads. A written policy, signed by the regional director and posted by the time clock, speaks to the broken safety bonus.

Fourth, keep the belt-speed decision with the crew. Sorters keep the right to ask for a slower belt, and the lead's log will show how often it happens. If requests fall sharply after the bonus begins, that is a warning sign.

The Cost Question

The plant manager asked whether a bonus that might pay out less often was worth the trouble. I modeled last quarter's data. Under his design, shifts would have earned the bonus on about forty percent of days. Under mine, roughly a third of pay periods would have qualified, at a lower cost, and none of the qualifying periods included a rejected bale. One avoided rejection covers several pay periods of bonus for the line.

Pay Is Still a Problem

The bonus is not a substitute for base pay. Our attitude survey rated pay 2.1 out of 5, and warehouses within ten miles pay about two dollars an hour more. A bonus that pays out a third of the time cannot close that gap, and presenting it as if it could would damage the trust it depends on. I recommended that the bonus go forward alongside the base pay review already requested, not instead of it.

What the Sorters Said

Before finalizing, I tested both designs with eight sorters from the two shifts. They disliked the tons-only version almost immediately: Luz said it would "turn the fiber line into a conveyor race," and an older sorter asked who would pay when a rushed bale came back. They liked that the alternative counted quality, wanted the heavy-load adjustment explained in writing and asked that the bonus be posted each pay period so they could check the math. One asked that the container line, which has no tonnage target, have its own version based on bale purity. That request is now part of the plan for the fall.

Decision and Evaluation

The plant manager accepted the combined target, the pay period basis and the written policy, and is taking the base pay review to the regional director with it. The bonus starts in September. I will compare tons per hour, contamination, rejected bales and belt-slowdown requests for the three months before and after, and include two questions about the bonus in the next pulse survey.

Conclusion

A tons-only bonus would likely have raised speed and threatened the bale quality the plant depends on. Expectancy theory showed why sorters might doubt the bonus, Cerasoli and colleagues showed that directly tied incentives favor quantity over quality, and self-determination theory explained why a controlling reward could erode motivation the crew had begun to own. A bonus that counts quality, adjusts for what sorters cannot control and is written down gives the plant a better chance of buying both.

References

Cerasoli, C. P., Nicklin, J. M., & Ford, M. T. (2014). Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives jointly predict performance: A 40-year meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 140(4), 980-1008. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035661

Gagné, M., & Deci, E. L. (2005). Self-determination theory and work motivation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26(4), 331-362. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.322

Van Eerde, W., & Thierry, H. (1996). Vroom's expectancy models and work-related criteria: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(5), 575-586. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.81.5.575