Subjective Attendance Motivation
Employee absenteeism severely degrades organizational output, but outcome-based objective incentives often fail to motivate basic physical presence when output is noisy.
Picture this
Imagine a store owner who pays employees based on overall weekly store sales versus one who directly observes daily arrival times; employees show up much more reliably when they know their direct physical presence is noted and rewarded by their boss, rather than depending on sales totals affected by weather or foot traffic.
What the evidence says
Subjective performance incentives increased teacher attendance by 5.927 days present per year relative to control (p < 0.10; 3.340 days in restricted sample, p < 0.01), whereas objective incentives generated a non-statistically significant increase of 2.426 days (p = 0.570).
- Who
- N = 6,394 teacher-level biometric attendance records across 295 school clusters in Pakistan.
- How
- Randomized controlled trial (RCT) utilizing daily biometric clock-in/out administrative data to compare flat raises, objective test-score rank raises, and subjective manager-discretionary raises.
What to do
Deploy manager-discretionary subjective evaluations to directly incentivize fundamental baseline employee behaviors like physical workplace attendance.
From the source
"Relative to a control group mean of 145 days, subjective teachers are present an additional 6 days."
Subjective versus Objective Incentives and Employee Productivity
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