Research on Employee Performance and Pay
Purpose
Employee performance and compensation are directly correlated; however, despite the concept of pay for performance being highly embraced in today’s corporate world, many employers are issuing complaints that their metrics for the evaluation of employee performance are not sufficient. For instance, the initiate and reward individual performance.
Currently, many employees are disregarding the traditional pay-for-performance methods such as annual merit salary increments and yearly bonuses. Statistics indicate that only 32% of the merit compensation programs are effective in distinguishing merit due to employee performance, whereas only 20% of the programs are reliable in establishing higher levels of employee performance.
The goal of this study, therefore, is to evaluate the relationship between employee performance and pay and how employee performance impacts pay or vice versa. The main question is to answer how merit compensation programs affect employee performance. Additionally, the research seeks to address the concern on the low effectiveness of employee merit programs on individual performance.
Logic Model
Inputs
Processes
Outcomes
Either employee performance or pay can be used as the constant variable because they rely on each other. If employee performance is the independent variable, the pay factor will be the dependent variable. The alternative is also applicable whereby employee performance is the dependent variable and pay is the independent variable.
Conduct employee performance evaluation to assess whether they qualify for the payment being issued.
Issuing constant employee performance feedback.
Conduct self-evaluation tests on employees.
Employee recognition tests.
Recording employee performance and progress.
Formulating individual development goals to ensure the employee remains competitive in his or her role.
Establishing a performance improvement schedule for every employee to help them grow in their career.
Taking disciplinary action against non-performing employees such as issuing warnings or job termination.
Offering non-discriminatory promotion opportunities that include recognition strategies and pay increments.
Training managers to conduct proper employee performance assessments through appraisals.
Increased employee productivity.
Attaining the satisfaction equilibrium whereby both the employee and company needs are being met.
Meeting the company’s employee retention goals.
Salary increments, bonuses, retirement, executive, core and equity benefits.
Short-term outcomes
Intermediate outcomes
Long-term outcomes
Salary increments with adequate performance.
Performance appraisals and employee satisfaction.
Increased firm productivity.
Employee motivation thus increased performance.
Employee career development and growth.
Annual bonuses and benefits.
With employee performance as the constant variable, the research aims to analyze how this factor leads to paying increments or reduction. I plan to utilize both quantitative and qualitative methods of obtaining data through random sampling to test my hypothesis. The main quantitative techniques I will apply are gathering relevant information from organization’s information systems and conducting surveys with close-ended interrogations such as questionnaires and face-to-face interview sessions. To clarify data collected, I will use qualitative data collection techniques such as in-depth interviews with open-ended questions to acquire detailed information. Document review of employee performance is also a reliable method I will implement to evaluate the authenticity of my results.
Population
The largest population for my research is the employee body of Marbel Information Limited. The company has over 100 employees therefore I will perform a simple random sampling method to acquire a small group of between 10-15 individuals to work with. I choose to apply the simple random technique because every employee will have an equal opportunity of selection; therefore, it is an unbiased technique.
Measures
The main variables associated with the employees are gender and job position. Approximately, 70% of the employees are male while 55% of them are junior staff members. Educational qualification and age are additional substantive variables. Majority of the professionals (90%) attained university degrees while 10% of them only pursued short college certificate courses. Also, most of the employees fall in the age bracket of 30-40 yrs.
Substantive variables
Conceptual definition
Actual measure
Level of measurement
Gender
The social, economic, cultural and political impacts associated with being male or female.
Obtaining and analyzing discriminatory gender data through qualitative and quantitative methods regarding gender associations in a work environment.
Nominal categorical
Job position
The title of an individual that consists of a written statement which displays one’s working conditions, duties, roles and purpose.
Evaluating the amount of time employees spend on their duties or roles.
Ordinal categorical
Education background
Formal education obtained which consists of certificates, degrees or diplomas.
Duration of educational experience or the credentials attained from the educational system.
Ordinal categorical
Age
The period that a person has existed since birth.
Using the age calculator to determine the age by counting the number of years since the date one was born.
Quantitative or continuous.
Ordinal categorical.
Sampling
There are several sampling techniques including the lottery method, random number table and sampling by use of a computer; however, in this case, I will apply to sample without replacement which ensures that a participant has only one chance of inclusion. I will write the names of all employees on individual pieces of paper and mix the papers in a bowl then randomly pick a name to be included in the sample. The writing is set aside after being selected to prevent selection of the same individual more than once.
Potential Biases
Some potential sources of bias to anticipate in the study include selection bias whereby randomness is not fully attained. The sole selection bias in this study is membership bias which mainly focuses on the survey of employees. Non-response bias is anticipation whereby some participants may refuse to cooperate or respond positively to the study. Voluntary response bias may occur when some participants are very opinionated which causes their strong opinions to overshadow those of other participants. Social desirability bias may arise when some participants respond to survey or questionnaire questions according to what is considered socially polite for fear of being embarrassed. Acquiescence bias may occur when participants return to questions agreeably to get through the survey quickly thus leading to false responses.
Coverage bias occurs when a research sample is underrepresented and many people in the overall population have a very low probability of being included in the survey. Random sampling technique ensures that all participants have an equal chance of selection. Non-response bias can negatively affect research when there are explicit differences between responders. For example in my study, the variables gender, job position, educational background, and age can lead to non-response bias because participants have distinct differences. Misleading questions highly contribute to non-response bias especially when it directly influences a particular variable. For example, female workers rarely tend to reveal their real age in the workplace. Furthermore, those with little educational experience may show signs of non-response due to embarrassment.
Method
Face-to-face interview sessions will enable me to create a rapport with the participants thus gaining their positive feedback. Interviews attain the most significant response rates in research therefore highly effective. Additionally, ambiguous responses can be clarified through follow-up questions. The main drawbacks of meetings include inapplicable for large sample sizes, costly and time-consuming. I will also utilize the self-administered questionnaire which can be issued to a large number of participants thus cost and time effectively. Participants show abetter response on inquiries particularly concerning sensitive issues because their answers are anonymous. The main disadvantage of using questionnaires is many participants who receive them fail to return them, and those who do might not be among the initially selected sample.
Questionnaire
Do you think that your educational qualification directly relates to the amount of pay you are receiving? (Yes_ or No_). If yes, please explain how.
Does the aspect of gender influence your performance at work? (Yes_ or No_). When have you ever felt that your work performance was affected because you are a woman or man?
Does having a higher job position mean that one has to earn a higher salary than other employees? (Yes_ or No_). Briefly explain why you support your answer.
Is employee performance affected by age? (Yes_ or No_). If yes, please describe why.
Do you think that age should dictate how much compensation one should receive, for instance, should junior employees and interns in their 20s receive lower pay than senior employees in their 40s? (Yes_ or No_).
Does your educational background impact your performance at work? (Yes_ or No_). If so, please describe how.
Do you feel that if your pay was increased, your performance would also increase? (Yes_ or No_). If yes, briefly explain how.
If your manager appraised you for being the top performer this year, would you request for salary increment? (Yes_ or No_).