The type of employee incentive has an impact on work performance.

Money is two times more effective

at increasing employee performance than gifts and vacations (27% versus 13%).

Money used as an employee incentive increases employee performance by 27%.

Gifts and vacations used as an employee incentive increases employee performance by 13%.

Competitive incentive programs are slightly more effective at increasing performance than non-
competitive programs:

Competitive incentives increase employee performance by 27%.

Non-competitive incentives increase employee performance by 22%.

Long-term incentive programs have a larger effect on employee performance than short-term incentive
programs:

Short-term incentive programs increase employee performance by 20%.

Intermediate incentive programs increase performance by 29%.

Long-term programs increase performance by 44%.

Team-based incentive programs have a significantly larger effect on employee performance than
individual-based incentive programs:

Individual-based incentive programs increase employee performance by 19%.

Team-based programs increase performance by 48%.

Incentives also have an impact on the quantity and quality of work performance:

They can increase the quantity of work performance by 21%.

And increase performance quality by 26%.

Incentives can play an important role in motivating employees. Incentives have less of an impact on
motivating employees to start a new task (15%) than they do on motivating the employee to persist at a
task (27%) once they start it or on motivating them to work smarter (26%).