There incentives all over the place when it comes to making personal life decisions, but one of my personal experiences that I have with incentives relates to one of my former jobs when I was younger. From age thirteen until age eighteen, all of my personal money came from refereeing soccer games. A first year referee in the area that I live in gets paid around twelve dollars for a "house" recreational league match. There is incentive to continue your refereeing career past year one to gain the option of refereeing travel matches (these matches paid eighteen dollars, and were only ten minutes longer than the house matches). The next incentive was the three year pay increase. After being a referee for three years you become a senior referee, which allows you to become a head referee, rather than just a sideline referee. This bump up in position also came with a bump in pay, so a house match paid twenty dollars, and a travel match paid twenty five. Basically, incentives of money or salary made it much easier to continue working as a referee rather than finding another job. The other incentive that this situation relates to is the idea that the incentive to climb the "job ladder" within a company can really affect performance.
When discussing incentives in regards to school, the type of class that I think of would be a large lecture course that does not monitor attendance. Many students (inlcuding myself) can be lazy from time to time, so a class that does not monitor attendance could lead to absences from class. Right there, the incentive to sleep, rather than listen to a lecture might cause you to miss class on a repeated basis. What I have found out is that these types of classes are really not beneficial to students who skip class because the whole process of the class is thrown out. What I mean by that is students are supposed to attend lecture, listen, process, and attempt to comprehend what the professor speaks about. If as a student you decide to miss class, you miss out on this process, and will likely attempt to cram before tests and get by like that. This might lead to a worse grade than you could have possibly received had you attended lecture more often. So in essence, a student who has no reason to attend class, may not. If this student decides not to attend class on a regular basis, he/she might struggle. Incentives are important in keeping people in check, or doing what they are supposed to do. In this case some sort of monitoring of attendance would lead to an incentive for students to attend lecture, which in turn would lead to better grades (incentives guarantee performance).
When it comes to school and risk aversion, I think getting things done early reduces risk for me as a student. I can procrastinate from time to time, but I have made a concious effort to get homework and studying done early, rather than waiting until the last minute to do so. My performance usually suffers when I wait until the last minute to get things done, so I have incentive to avoid risk and uncertainty by taking care of business early. Another example that I can think of where I attempt to avoid uncertainty and risk in regards to school is when I keep up to date with class materials on a regular basis rather than having to catch up later in the semester. Cramming before tests leads to bad grades for me, and I find that by keeping up to date in my classes makes my performance better, as well as my grades.
The increasing pay with seniority example that you gave about the soccer refereeing is interesting. Did you do it initially for the money? Did your parents do something to trigger you getting the job, like cutting off your allowance? When I was at Cornell I had a friend who refereed intramural hockey, but I think he did it primarily to stay close to the game.
ReplyDeleteI know that many students don't attend lectures when given in a large auditorium. But I wonder if attendance were checked whether that really would solve the problem. People can be in the auditorium but be focused on something entirely different, though perhaps not cutting zzz's.
I was also faced with a year on year increasing pay scale when I worked my first job. I worked in a garage where I changed tires painted and did all sorts of maintenance on Will County Forest Preserve machines.Money played a role in why I stuck with the job (though I enjoyed it too), but I think the main reason I did not search for anything else was a feeling of complacency and not wanting change, rather than incentives.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the lecture idea goes, I think many of us can speak for Econ 102. Many a days did I sit up in the balcony with other work/addicting games rolling in front of my eyes as the professor talked about fish, bees, or something. I got a B- or something in that class which should have been easy. I just didn't pay attention. That professor should think of a good incentive system since that class is required for people who are not all that interested too. I certainly should have cared more as an econ major. But you live and you learn.
Jim brings up a great point on incentives in the classroom due to the fact that without incentives and a engaging professor you end up not getting the grade you should have had. I once took a class where attendance was taken in the beginning of class and then I would fall asleep. I was so uninterested to the point where I didn't even know when the exam was. I walked into the class one day and they were giving out scan-trons. I immediately walked out and dropped the class because at that point I knew this class was not right for me. All in all, I've taken classes where the subject matter did not interest me, yet the professor provided incentives and compelled me with his teaching style to further explore the depths of the subject. It is not about what the subject material is rather it is how the material is presented and the incentives the teacher provides to keep the student engaged.
ReplyDeleteI think your discussion of the pay increases you got with experience in working was good. I was wondering if during that time period, your performance was monitored in some way. For example, some referees may be really excellent, but are still given the same pay raise at the same time as those who are not doing as much quality work. Does this give them an incentive to do a great job?
ReplyDeleteAs a caddie, our work was divided into 3 tiers, offering more opportunity to get out on the course and a higher suggested pay scale. The promotion was based partially on length of time, but was also monitored by our caddie master as well as the players. If we got great reviews and players would suggest that you be promoted, you were. Generally speaking, this type of monitoring enabled the more experienced and quality caddies to progress more quickly. In addition, every caddie ticket we turn in has an evaluation of our performance and the pay we receive can vary depending on the player as well as on how successful we were at doing our job.
Incentives should try to match up with corporate goals,; however, it may not always happen. If your bosses could monitor your quality of refereeing, how would they do it? Is it possible to monitor the quality of a referee?