"Living standards in the UK and the US are in danger of falling. In the past change has brought disruption with the offsetting reward of higher living standards from growth. Today we have disruption without reward. The resulting voter dissatisfaction encourages populist policies which threaten even worse outcomes. The decline in growth has weakened the standing of liberal democracy both at home and internationally. The decline is entirely due to poor productivity combined with an unfavourable change in demography. The UK and the US have changed from having a demographic surplus in which the working population grew faster than the total population to a demographic deficit. Before living standards grew faster than productivity they now grow more slowly. Faster immigration could change demography, but voters are likely to press for less. To avoid falling living standards we must increase the rate at which productivity improves. Faster productivity does not only depend on technology. We can improve it by encouraging more investment. Growth depends on Total Factor Productivity ("TFP"), for which current consensus estimates are based on a faulty model which has induced pessimism about our ability to encourage more growth. The book sets out a revised and superior model of TFP which demonstrates that the weakness in productivity is the result of the bonus culture and suggests ways by which this can be changed so that investment is encouraged and growth returns."

Living standards in the UK and US are in danger of falling. A decline in growth due to poor productivity and an unfavourable change in demography has weakened the stand of liberal democracy, and voter dissatisfaction is encouraging populist policies that threaten even worse outcomes. Whilst living standards once grew faster than productivity they now grow more slowly, and the working population is no longer growing faster than the population as a whole. To avoid falling living standards the productivity problem must be addressed. Andrew Smithers argues that faster productivity does not depend, as many suggest, on technology; it also relies on investment. Current growth theory is based on a faulty model which has induced pessimism about our ability to encourage more growth. Productivity and the Bonus Culture sets out a revised model which demonstrates that weakness in productivity is the result of the bonus culture, and suggests ways to change this flawed system so that investment is encouraged and growth returns.

As the controversies surrounding performance related pay have demonstrated, reward management is a key issue. Collecting the results of 'fieldwork' investigations in factories and retail outlets, this book measures output before and after a change in methods of remuneration. The link between productivity and stress is explored and conclusions drawn. An introductory chapter, by the eminent economist P. Sargant Florence summarises previously published productivity studies.

#1 New York Times Bestseller Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr reveals how the goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has helped tech giants from Intel to Google achieve explosive growth—and how it can help any organization thrive. In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up whom he'd just given $12.5 million, the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. For Google to change the world (or even to survive), Page and Brin had to learn how to make tough choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They'd have to know when to pull the plug on losing propositions, to fail fast. And they needed timely, relevant data to track their progress—to measure what mattered. Doerr taught them about a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He had first discovered OKRs in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where the legendary Andy Grove ("the greatest manager of his or any era") drove the best-run company Doerr had ever seen. Later, as a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove's brainchild with more than fifty companies. Wherever the process was faithfully practiced, it worked. In this goal-setting system, objectives define what we seek to achieve; key results are how those top-priority goals will be attained with specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone's goals, from entry level to CEO, are transparent to the entire organization. The benefits are profound. OKRs surface an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination. They keep employees on track. They link objectives across silos to unify and strengthen the entire company. Along the way, OKRs enhance workplace satisfaction and boost retention. In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations. This book will help a new generation of leaders capture the same magic.

This paper analyzes the impact of labor market competition and skill-biased technical change on the structure of compensation. The model combines multitasking and screening, embedded into a Hotelling-like framework. Competition for the most talented workers leads to an escalating reliance on performance pay and other high-powered incentives, thereby shifting effort away from less easily contractible tasks such as long-term investments, risk management and within-firm cooperation. Under perfect competition, the resulting efficiency loss can be larger than that imposed by a single firm or principal, who distorts incentives downward in order to extract rents. More generally, as declining market frictions lead employers to compete more aggressively, the monopsonistic underincentivization of low-skill agents first decreases, then gives way to a growing overincentivization of high-skill ones. Aggregate welfare is thus hill-shaped with respect to the competitiveness of the labor market, while inequality tends to rise monotonically. Bonus caps and income taxes can help restore balance in agents' incentives and behavior, but may generate their own set of distortions.

Here is a straightforward system for shifting your company's productivity and profits into high gear! This book offers key management strategies for obtaining and sustaining peak performance in any company or or organization. John G. Belcher covers all aspects of productivity, including how to get top-management committment, involve and reinforce employees, and measure productivity; the role of the union; and the quality/productivity connection. This book also shares an insider's view on how a number of major companies such as Xerox, Tenneco, and Westinghouse have successfully applied the Productivity Plus system to their problemsm with meaningful bottom-line results.

"Compensation and Motivation" is the first book in the Culture of Partnership series. With a strong foundation in social science and behavioral psychology, this book will show you how to develop incentive plans that work! Turn the cost of compensation into an investment that will increase revenue and profit, enhance the value of the organization and motivate all employees to deliver the business strategy. Compensation and Motivation describes how to develop the right reward system that will engage and motivate the target audience. Employees come to work for the rewards, either material (money), social (recognition and appreciation) or both. Mr. McCoy shows how to combine behavioral psychology and business strategy to create a reward system that offers fulfillment to the employees if they deliver on the company goals. This book goes beyond just showing how to link pay to performance. It shows how to balance the array of rewards that a company can offer (cash, benefits, meaningful work, social recognition and appreciation) so that the maximum motivation is obtained with the least overall cost. It's called "the mix that motivates." Since this book was initially published, over 65 percent of all businesses now offer some form of incentive to all employees. However, many of those efforts are ineffective in achieving the organization's goals. This book shows how to engage all employees in the business, motivate them to perform at exceptional levels, create a common focus and a feeling of shared destiny (teamwork.) Learn how to become an employer of choice. Learn how to engage employees so that the operation "runs itself." Learn how to use compensation as the engine that drives a Culture of Partnership.

As the world of work becomes more complex and competitive with the current turbulent business environment with focus shifting more to intangible assets, companies and organisations are exploring various strategies to survive and remain competitive. Crucially, in a labour intensive industry like hotel business, employees' motivation to go an extra mile in their performance becomes critical in achieving high quality service delivery. Some companies have introduced a "Performance - Related Bonus" scheme as a strategy to incentivize their staff to work harder with the hope that this will have a positive impact on productivity. As employee motivation is a complex subject, no single model can be ideal. Based on a practical company experience in a developing country, Malawi, this book provides useful and valuable insights into this thorny area of whether performance - linked bonus or monetary rewards can have a positive impact on employee motivation and resultantly improve productivity.Challenges associated with the introduction and implementation of the "Performance-Related Bonus" policy have also been explored.