The employees themselves had a good counterpoint: "Am I doing my job well enough to deserve this?"
There are incentives in both directions, with poor performers still receiving raises and hard workers wondering if they should work harder to earn the extra money. In the end, management style and a larger applicant pool might have more effect than the actual raise on worker motivation. I've seen the same conflicts discussed in the article (pay varies little with performance, who "deserves" a raise, etc.) among people being paid less than $10/hr, so I suspect the issue has more to do with cultural expectations and the way management handles poor performers.
The employees themselves had a good counterpoint: "Am I doing my job well enough to deserve this?"
There are incentives in both directions, with poor performers still receiving raises and hard workers wondering if they should work harder to earn the extra money. In the end, management style and a larger applicant pool might have more effect than the actual raise on worker motivation. I've seen the same conflicts discussed in the article (pay varies little with performance, who "deserves" a raise, etc.) among people being paid less than $10/hr, so I suspect the issue has more to do with cultural expectations and the way management handles poor performers.