In the workplace, a commission, a financial bonus or a gift if the employee works well is almost a convention: “Hit target X and you’ll start earning close to what’s fair”. For the market, the reward scheme seems much more viable than the adoption of trust.

They are called bonus campaigns, which are more like training campaigns. The sales assistant, or any other function, earns an extra percentage on their (low) salary if a target is reached. The truth is that the bonus scheme has to do with an infantilization of the work environment and an extreme need for control – “Let’s give a cookie here to whoever does well”.

And in this infantilization, what does the company achieve? A good temporary performance, perhaps, or the certainty that they can only deliver if they get a reward. No bonuses, 4-hour lunches and 27 cigarettes? Incentive campaigns are, in fact, an incessant search for an environment that is totally controllable and never based on trust.

In addition to being unsustainable, reward strategies that rely on “little games” and gamification of work worsen performance in the medium term. After all, the effect is: “I’ll do my best to be rewarded and, if I’m not, I’ll do my best here”. This generates a clear conditioning of the workforce. Isn’t that obvious?

Another problem with this scheme is the constant atmosphere of unhealthy competition. Everyone works for the company to grow, meaning that if a person has performed well, it should be a collective victory and not an individual one. When individual performances are highlighted, the ego is fed and not the collective.

At Scooto, it became clear that remuneration is far from being the greatest motivator for doing a good job. Yes, it’s important, but having a working environment governed by cooperation, exchange, trust and purpose takes a company much further than bonuses.

Work is the exchange of time for money. Good work happens when that time is spent in a dignified, respectful and trustworthy environment. It has to be enjoyable, it has to be good for the ego, it has to have nice people, it has to have fair pay, yes, it has to have purpose, it even has to have leisure.

From the point of view of a startup leader, bonuses are, of course, a real excuse for paying people less and not taking risks. “If they don’t sell, I won’t pay them or I’ll pay them very little,” is what the market says. In the end, employees work for much less money.

And that’s not what I believe. I believe that the role of companies is to guarantee decent and happy conditions for those who collaborate with their growth to carry out their work in a full and interested manner and, as a consequence, achieve THEIR best INDIVIDUAL performance in order to have a collective victory.