REMUNERATION

Remuneration is usually associated with pay, wages, salary, etc. Automatically people would assume that money is the primary motivator for employees. While it's true that we all value money, employees will intuitively offset this benefit with the perceived costs to themselves.[1] This is where the non-monetary rewards make the distinction. They may be direct or indirect but nonetheless should be received during any task.

As students and in reference to our project, I believe the non-monetary rewards are/should be- Task Complexity, Variability of Work, Acquiring New Skill and Education, Recognition and Professional Development.
These should be the basic incentives for attempting or completing a task, not just in the education system.

Teaching people new skills is an important non-monetary remuneration because being knowledgeable in multiple disciplines is always an advantage, for the employee and for the employer.

Being involved in variety of tasks and different disciplines, especially in team work, helps to gain the maximum amount of experience and should keep the person’s skills ‘sharpened’ and up-to-date.

Having knowledge is to understand something, but wisdom is putting that knowledge into practice. Task should vary in their difficulty and the challenge of a complex task helps keep this distinction.

Making sure that a person’s contribution and efforts are recognized is essentially for keeping them content with their job and motivated for the next jobs at hand. Recognition is also useful for a person’s career development when the public has the knowledge of their efforts.

Especially in contemporary society, pursuing a job for life is not the career objective. People take jobs for the experience and the advantages it may bring to their skill set. Acquiring new skill, handling complex tasks, and being involved in a variety of tasks all lead to a better career path. The professional development of an employee and a student is always dependent on the development of their knowledge and wisdom.

Other non-monetary remunerations include top-of-the-line tools (best of the best technology), work/life balance, security and safety, social relationship, a combination of autonomous and team work, job rotation and responsibility.
A term worth mentioning is Job Satisfaction. ‘Theorists such as Turner and Lawrence (1965), Hackman and Oldham (1975,1980), Szilogyi and Keller (1976), among others have proposed that intrinsically, satisfying jobs are those where there is Variety, where workers have Autonomy in choosing procedures, where Feedback is received concerning the effectiveness and work impact, where the work has some social Significance or makes an important contribution to a product or services.’[2]

‘The link between job satisfaction and performance is thought to be a spurious relationship’.[3]


Fig. 1-Job Characteristics that help Job Satisfaction [4]



Others that would usually be associated with employment would be in the form of fringe benefits. These are such things as health insurance, retirement benefits, daycare, sick leave, vacation, social security, funding of education, flexible working hours etc.

Fig 2 Examples of Physical Non-Monetary Remuneration [5]
Common perks (benefits of a more discretionary nature) are company cars, hotel stays, free refreshments, leisure activities on work time (golf, etc.), stationery, allowances for lunch.

[1] Giles, 2004
[2] Anonymous
[3] Wikipedia, 2008

[4] Cummings and Worley, 2004 p 333

[5] Indirect Compensation, 2007

Bibliography

Giles, Tanya (Oct 2004). Non-Monetary Rewards As part of the remuneration equation.
New Zealand Management; 51(9), 46-47. Retrieved May 15, 2008 from EBSCO Host (Accession No. 14775001)

Job satisfaction. (May 2, 2008). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 15, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Job_satisfaction&oldid=209789000

Park, Hee Sun; Baker, Colin; and Lee, Dong Wook (2008). Need for Cognition, Task Complexity, and Job Satisfaction. Journal of management in engineering; 24(2), 111-117. Retrieved 15 May, 2008 from ASCE Research Library (DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0742-597X(2008)24:2(111))

Schnake, Mel E; Bushardt, Stephen C; and Spottswood, Curran. (1984). Internal Work Motivation and Intrinsic Job Satisfaction: The Effects of Goal Clarity, Goal Difficulty, Participation in Goal Setting, and Task Complexity. Group & Organization Studies (pre-1986), 9(2), 201. Retrieved May 15, 2008, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 656386091).

Cummings, Thomas G. and Worley, Christopher G.(2004). Organization Development and Change. Thomson South-Western.

James, Justin, (March, 2008). 10 non-monetary benefits to attract and retain top developers, 10 things, TechRepublic. Retrieved May 15, 2008 from http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=328

Anonymous, Job Satisfaction. Retrieved May 15, 2008 from All Free Essays.Com http://www.allfreeessays.net/student/JobSatisfaction.html%20/

Employee benefit. (May, 2008). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 15, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Employee_benefit&oldid=213022052

Indirect Compensation (2007). In Compensation, Payroll.Naukrihub.com. Retrieved May 15, 2008 from http://payroll.naukrihub.com/compensation/indirect-compensation.html