Want your employees to do a better job? Give them pizzas and compliments

Would you work for pizza?

Apparently, many people would do so based on a study conducted by a professor at the Duke University. In his new book titled Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations, Psychology professor Dan Ariely suggested that employees feel more motivated when rewarded with pizzas and compliments compared to cash incentives.

In the experiment, Ariely asked workers at a semiconductor company in Israel to assemble a prescribed number of chips per day and promised them specific incentives if they accomplish the job.

The first group was promised a text message that says “Well Done” from the boss at the end of the week, while the second group was told they were going to receive $30. Meanwhile, the third group was promised a voucher of pizza, while the fourth group, which served as the control group, received no message or offer.

Free pizza emerged as the top motivator at the start of the week showing a 6.7% rise in productivity over the control group. Workers who received a compliment had a 6.6% increase in activity while those who were promised money just had a 4.9% rise in productivity.

As the week wrapped up, the group who was promised money performed 13.2% worse than the control group.

“We find that financial incentives may indeed reduce intrinsic motivation and diminish ethical or other reasons for complying with workplace social norms such as fairness,”  said Bernd Irlenbusch of the London School of Economics Department of Management.