How are motivation and safety among workers affected by performance based rewards in construction?

The construction industry has a history of being exposed to risks, where employees experience deficiencies regarding safety with stress as a usual underlying factor. The industry is dominated by different types of performance-based reward systems, piece rate pay, which in the past have been based solely on time-efficiency but have lately been introduced to other measures. Past studies have shown that performance-based monetary rewards can be the reason behind the employees’ motivation and experienced stress and safety. The performance-based reward can have a positive impact on employee motivation whereas it in the meantime can enhance the employee’s level of stress. However, former research does not include a broader explanation of why the reward systems have this effect on employees within the construction industry and how this problem can be avoided regarding it from a business administration point of view. Rewards are a control tool which organizations use to motivate and control the behavior of their employees. This encouraged the aim of the study, to increase the understanding of how different performance-based reward systems within the construction industry are perceived by employees, especially on the motivation to work more safety based. To fulfil the aim of the study, we applied a quantitative research strategy with ten semi structured interviews with respondents currently working in construction. All of the respondents had experiences of different performance-based rewards and were therefore the foundation of the data collection. This study showcases that employees in construction consider monetary rewards to be important in relation to their motivation, although they still feel a strong intrinsic motivation to complete the tasks. The different reward systems decide where on the selfdetermining continuum the respondents are since they have different levels of intrinsic motivation to the different types of tasks that are rewarded. A piece rate pay based on production during a certain period of time motivates the employees to a higher extent due to the fact that they were able to affect the outcome. Simultaneously the respondent experienced major differences in stress and safety related tasks between the different reward systems, to the parameter system’s advantage. The reasons behind the differences in the reward system compared to each other were for instance less pressure from time and/or colleagues as well as the fact that rewards were provided for safety related tasks. In conclusion, different performance-based reward systems have different effects on the employee. A thorough evaluation and continuing updating of the reward systems may be of importance to control both organizations and employees in the desired direction.