Using Intrinsic Rewards to Motivate Employees

Intrinsic Motivation
The Scanlon plan that is described in the case hurts the employees' intrinsic motivation. This is because the plan was making use of "if-then" economic rewards that are known to offer short-term performance improvements. When Ron Bent was hired as the plant manager, the company's productivity was already on a decline and implementing the Scanlon plan resulted in improved productivity. During this time the employees' no longer saw the bonuses as benefits, but rather as their right and it is for this reason that they began getting disgruntled when the bonuses were not being paid for a couple of months (Michael Beer & Collins, 2008). Making use of performance rewards based on if-then is usually recommended for a short-term. The motivation for the employees will wane as they get accustomed to the rewards attached to their performance and most of them will lose interest in the work they have been doing. Most of the plant workers might have enjoyed what they do and they might take great pride in the tasks they perform at the plant. However, with the introduction of the if-then economic rewards, they increased their productivity, and this resulted in them losing the interest to perform their tasks.
Intrinsic motivation is defined as motivation that comes from inside and the employee performs a task or action because they enjoy doing the activity. The Scanlon plan implemented extrinsic motivation where the employees were used to intrinsic motivation and this resulted in the employee motivation being hurt. There are many factors that could have necessitated for the implementation of the Scanlon plan, but all these factors should have considered how the plan would impact on the intrinsic motivation of the employees. Internal rewards are far much fulfilling for the employees than external rewards. The employees no longer performed their tasks because they enjoyed what they were doing. They now performed tasks in order for them to receive the bonuses that come with increasing production. It is for this reason that the employees started feeling the plan was working against them when they complained and no longer offered any suggestions to management. The employees were no longer internally motivated to perform their duties and this agitated them and they now only focused on how they can increase the bonus that they receive. The satisfaction that the employees used to get from performing their work was no longer there and they had lost interest in doing their work. Intrinsic motivation encourages an employee to do that which they enjoy and they would be very good at it. As it has been pointed out in numerous studies, if-then economic rewards have the potential to increase the productivity of employees. However, the increase is normally for a short period. These rewards cannot be relied upon to offer long-term motivation for the employees.
Satisfying Employees’ Needs
In order to ensure that the employees' needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are satisfied the Scanlon plan should not have relied on the if-then model. However, the plan should have used the now-that model for rewarding the employees. The same plan would still have been used but the rewards and the bonuses would now not be contingent on the employees' productivity and performance. The Scanlon plan should have been used to encourage the employees to offer suggestions regarding how the company could improve upon its plant operations and encourage employees to speak up with the management. This would have ensured there is employee autonomy and the employees need for autonomous would still have been preserved. Autonomous refers to the free will when doing something or performing a task (Pink, 2011). The employees lost autonomous when they were no longer working because they enjoyed it, but rather because they now wanted to receive the promised bonuses.
The Scanlon plan denied the employees competence because they no longer could do a job properly because they were rushing to finish what they were doing in order to increase production. Competence refers to the ability of an individual to do a task properly. In as much as the plan was effective initially, it had lost its attractiveness and this is the downside of using such a plan to motivate the employees. Since the employees were no longer concerned with doing their tasks properly the quality of the product produced could have decreased and this would hurt the company's sales. To preserve the employees’ competence, the Scanlon plan should have encouraged the employees to perform their tasks as effectively as they could without attaching a financial reward for the work they perform. The employees should have been allowed to communicate with the management regarding the direction of the company and they should have been told how vital the work they perform is to the company. With open communication, the employees are more likely to feel valued and be motivated because they are part of the big picture, which they now understand.
The introduction of economic rewards resulted in the employees no longer caring for each other as they were now more focused on how much bonus each receives. Relatedness could have been satisfied by having the employees only receive the bonuses as something the company gives them that is not related to the work they have been doing. In this manner, the employees would not attack each other fighting to receive more bonuses as compared to other employees. The employees should be intrinsically motivated in order to ensure that they continue performing their work as expected. The plant manager should have implemented the Scanlon plan with the employees' needs in mind instead of focusing on the needs of the company.


References
Michael Beer, & Collins, E. (2008). Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant: Motivating in Good times and Bad. Havard Business Publishing.
Pink, D. H. (2011). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.