Motivation and Performance in the Public Sector
The country’s public sector is the niche that involves multiple vital services and goods for citizens. People who provide these products must implement their work thoroughly. For this reason, the heads of various public sector departments must motivate their workers to undertake their duties to gain the best results. It means that the performance rate should be at a high level. Consequently, to prompt task achievement, it must be tied to pay.
Payment and bonuses are the factors that foster quality jobs and the overall satisfaction rate of employees, which results in effective labor. To understand how to inspire people to work better, an organization must analyze the type of individuals engaged in the process. According to the research, Millennials occupy various positions in today’s labor market (Rivers, 2018). They have behavioral peculiarities that need to be satisfied to promote better work.
Multiple theories explain how to improve performance in the public sector. The main point highlighted is that it is a challenge for corporations to choose the best motivational tools for the Millennials (Rivers, 2018). This group of employees possesses different career expectations and values compared to other generations, striving for advanced opportunities, competitive payments, and a balanced life between work and privacy (Rivers, 2018).
Different companies try to enhance Millennials with payments to highlight their significance, consequently boosting business performance (Rivers, 2018). Successful company functioning depends on job satisfaction, which can be improved by specific payments for performance (Fulmer et al., 2023). As a result, the main goal of such manipulation will be gained – individuals will become inspired to work harder on the results through enhanced activity. Consequently, it is necessary to tie pay to performance in the public sector. Such a scenario will benefit all parties – employers, employees, and citizens.
Pay-for-Performance Benefits
Connecting pay with performance allows the public sector to cultivate positive aspects of loyalty and a healthy working environment that involves multiple welfare. Different compensation programs drive employees to work better, gain common goals, and produce good results (Rivers, 2018). Such programs include bonuses and benefits for successfully implementing duties (Fulmer et al., 2023). Offering these payments motivates the workforce and fast and steady goal achievement (Fulmer et al., 2023).
These aspects depend on the performance management process and the federal government’s interaction with public sector organizations (Liberty University, n.d.). They must function coherently to ensure steady financing and a balance of goal outcomes. It is accomplished through planning, monitoring, developing, reading, and warning (Liberty University, n.d.). The condition of equal and progressive implementation of all the mentioned steps will ensure a smooth connection between pay and performance, producing the best results from the side of employers and employees.
Key Characteristics
For a better understanding of the characteristics of effective pay for performance, it is necessary to make an overview of Millennials’ qualities, as they are the vast majority of employees in the public sector. After this analysis, it will be easier to understand the features of a pay-for-performance program that really works. Millennials’ main qualities are awareness, meaningful work, belonging, and a prospective career environment (Barbos, 2021).
Therefore, the first feature of an effective pay-for-performance program is the linkage to individual, team, department, and organization types of activity (Park, 2022). This characteristic results in subsequent positive financial operating and management interconnection that aims to achieve public values (Park, 2022). Another quality is cooperative framework availability, which, despite enhanced payment, provides safety, health, and quality (Bucklin et al., 2022).
An effective pay-for-performance program has fixed compensation and easy payment plans, which are the most important characteristics of the program’s success (Bucklin et al., 2022). It is justified because the program increases workers’ trustworthiness, motivation, and productivity. Eventually, it will benefit both organizations and employees, and this program will be implemented frequently.
Christian Perspective
When looking at pay-for-performance programs from the perspective of Christianity, it should be stated that this vital tool is positive. Proverbs 27:17 states, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Bible Gateway, n.d.). It may be interpreted as a financial bonus for good work; running is a kind of “sharpening” of a person’s professional competence.”
The Bible evaluates such actions as encouraging and motivational for gaining new goals. My evaluation of others in the spirit of Christ is putting them higher and making them believe in their strengths and talents by inspiring them with financial support. An effective pay-for-performance program should develop and cultivate many characteristics that enhance individual and collective success in an organization.
Interaction between management and workers in public administration depends on many factors, one of which is the pay-for-performance program. Employees must be rewarded for their good labor to increase a stable organization’s functioning in the future. The government should care about sharing the budget for financial benefits and bonuses for public sector workers.
For this reason, pay must be tied to performance and become effective through acquiring sufficient characteristics. It helps to cultivate the program’s success and increase an organization’s operations through enhanced work and devotion to the common goal of employees. The moral principles of such an approach are supported by the Christian point of view, where encouraging and inspiring people is highlighted as a positive notion. Eventually, combining all the mentioned factors results in the progressive development of the public sector.
References
Barbos, A. C. (2021). Strategies for motivating and retaining millennial workers. Walden University Scholar Works, 1-101.
Bible Gateway (n.d.). Proverbs 27. Biblica. Web.
Bucklin, B. R., Li, A., Rodriguez, M. M., Johnson, D. A., & Eagle, L. M. (2022). Pay for performance: Behavior-based recommendations from research and practice. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 42(4), 309-335. Web.
Fulmer, I. S., Gerhart, B., & Kim, J. H. (2023). Compensation and performance: A review and recommendations for the future. Personnel Psychology, 76(2), 687-718. Web.
Liberty University. (n.d.). Performance management: PADM704: Human resources and the legal and regulatory context of public administration [Video]. Liberty.edu. Web.
Park, J. (2022). What makes performance-related pay effective in the public sector? Target, pay design, and context. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 42(3), 416–443. Web.
Rivers, D. L. (2018). A grounded theory of Millennials’ job-hopping. Walden University Scholar Works, 1-187.
