Pay-for-Performance: An Empirical Examination of Employee Attitudes and Actual Performance. Final Report

摘要

The research reported here examines the effectiveness of a merit pay plan in one large transit authority. The study found that employees generally believe in the concept of a merit-based pay system and believe their supervisors do rate individuals on their performance. However, results also indicate that there are several areas in which the merit pay system can be improved. First, supervisors need to do a more effective job of keeping employees informed about their performance level. Second, there are large differences across supervisors in the average performance appraisal scores which they give their subordinates. Third, certain supervisors tend to allow systematic bias to enter employee evaluations. Finally, an analysis of the performance evaluation-pay increase relationship suggests that this linkage is not as strong as it should be under a pure pay-for-performance system.