Friday, January 9, 2009
Reward Power
There are many types of power. The power that I have seen in action is reward power. Reward power is when a person can give some formal or informal reward in exchange for another persons compliance. Today at work the foreman notified us workers that someone was going to have to work graveyard shift. This job requires all painting to be done when the office is closed. So we would have to start at eight at night and work until four. Nobody was eager to accept the assignment. Then the foreman said we would get overtime pay for the entire job. That is time and a half. All of a sudden there were some volunteers. I am glad the foreman decided to use reward power as opposed to using coercive power.
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Reward power is defiantly a good thing but it is not always an easy thing for a manager to have to deal with. When there are only a certain amount of positions open then giving a reward to take those positions can be hard. You have to see how many people now want the position and then take into consideration if those people have called in sick lately or if they don’t always show up on time. You would hate to give a reward to someone who doesn’t deserve it. You also would not want to give a reward for someone who was only going to do a half ass job. I think that people need to take more things into concideration before using the reward power.
ReplyDeleteVery good example. I think that most often people will only be willing to go out of their comfort zone or do some extra work if they know that they will be awarded a bonus or added incentive at the end of it. We are introduced to this concept as a child. How many times as a kid did you here "Do all of your homework and Mommy will give you a cookie". I know I did. And it was the knowledge that I would be given a gift or added incentive that made me work faster and harder.
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