Researchers of a new study found that when an employee shares his bonus with his team mates, the performance of the entire team gets better.
Team spirit and the ability to get all employees of a company to work together for the betterment of the company can be a challenging task. Work ethics, company politics and various other factor act as hurdles to achieving a 100 percent harmonious working environment. Therefore, many studies have been conducted and many strategies implemented to increase employee satisfaction and team performances.
In a new study, researchers from Fuqua School of Business at Duke University found that bonuses can play a major role in achieving this goal. Researchers observed that providing employees bonuses that they could either give away to charity or spend on their colleagues increases both employee satisfaction and team performance.
The study was conducted across three experiments. In the first experiment, a group of employees working at an Australian Bank were given either $20 or $50 to give away to a charity of their choice in the name of the company. Researchers found that the participants who gave away the larger amount of money reported more happiness and job satisfaction than the employees who didn't give away or gave a lesser amount of money to charity.
The other two experiments were conducted on 11 sports teams in Canada and 14 pharmaceutical sales teams in Belgium after receiving bonuses. A third of the participants were given $20 to either spend on themselves or their colleagues. Researchers found that the team where employees chose to share their bonuses performed better than teams where team members chose to spend the bonuses on themselves.
Researchers also noted that this elevated team performance led to the company making more money. In the case of the pharmaceutical sales teams, for every $10 given to employees to spend on their team mates, the company made $52 extra from the team's performance.
"The results across three studies suggest that a minor adjustment to employee bonuses - shifting the focus from the self to others - can create more altruistic, satisfying, and productive workplace," lead author Lalin Anik, said in a press release.