Working to benefit a good cause increases productivity by up to 30 per cent, according to the findings of a new study from the University of Southampton.
When workers are given a social incentive such as a charitable donation linked to their job, performance increases by an average of 13 per cent, which rises to as much as 30 per cent amongst those who are initially the least productive.
"A lot of studies have shown how financial incentives, like bonuses and stock options, can improve performance. But our results provide empirical support that some workers are also motivated by advancing social causes through their efforts," University of Southampton economist Mirco Tonin, who is also the lead author of the study, said.
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Performance was most improved (increasing by 26 per cent overall) when workers could decide how much of their pay they wanted contribute.
"When donations were optional, over half of participants chose to give a proportion of their own pay to a charity of their choice," the study said.
As part of the study, students at University of Southampton, completed four one-hour online data entry sessions, over the course of a week. Productivity was measured by the number of entries students made within the sessions and the accuracy of those entries.
The report further said that when participants could choose how much of their performance related pay they would like to share with a charity, and how much they wanted to keep for themselves, performance increased considerably.
Those who chose to donate gave an average of 20 per cent of their per entry rate, with women being more generous than men.
"We find that offering subjects some discretion in choosing their own payment scheme leads to a substantial improvement in performance," Tonin said adding "this suggests that firms willing to introduce corporate giving programmes may want to consider giving employees the opportunity to 'opt in'.
