The final days of a “sticks and carrots” era

by Dr Javier Bajer, Cultural Architect, Business School Professor and Editor-in-Chief, Strategic HR Review.

Managing people’s motivation and performance through incentives, rewards and quarterly objectives is breaking down, fast.

Regardless of how hard human resources (HR) departments try, organisations around the world are struggling to attract, engage and retain talent. Can we dare challenge an approach that has worked for a while, but it might no longer serve the world of work?

The problem is that sticks and carrots did work for a while. They had their moment of glory during the Industrial Revolution. At that time, someone knew exactly...