Chapter 7 Discussion Board

A Reward Allocation Decision

You are in charge of allocating a $12,000 bonus to a team that has recently met an important deadline. The team was in charge of designing a Web-based product for a client. The project lasted a year. There were five people in the team.

Devin: Project manager. He was instrumental in securing the client, coordinating everyones effort, and managing relationships with the client. He put in a lot of extra hours for this project. His annual salary is $80,000. He is independently wealthy, drives an expensive car and does not have any debt. He has worked for the company for 5 years and worked for the project from the beginning.

Alice: Technical lead. She oversaw the technical aspects of the project. She resolved many important technical issues. During the project, while some members worked extra hours, she refused to stay at the office outside of regular hours. However, she was productive during regular work hours and she was accessible via email in the evenings. Her salary is $50,000. She is a single mother and has a lot of debt. She has worked for the company for four years and worked for the project for eight months.

Erin: Graphic Designer. She was in charge of the creative aspects of the project. She experimented with many looks and while doing that she slowed down the entire team. Brice and Carrie were mad at her due to the many mistakes she made during the project, but the look and feel of the project eventually appealed to the client, which resulted in repeat business. Her salary is $30,000. She is single, and lives to party. She has worked for the company for 2 years and worked for this project since the beginning.

Brice: Tester. He was in charge of finding the bugs in the project and ensuring that it worked. He found many bugs, but he was not very aggressive in his testing. He misunderstood many things, and many of the bugs he found were not really bugs but his misuse of the system. He had a negative attitude toward the whole project, acted very pessimistically regarding the likelihood of success, and demoralized the team. His salary is $40,000. He has accumulated a large credit card debt. He has worked for the company for three years and worked for the project in the last six months.

Carrie: Web developer. She was in charge of writing the code. She was frustrated when Erin slowed down the entire project because of her experimentation. Carrie was primarily responsible for meeting the project deadline because she put in a lot of extra work hours. Her salary is $50,000. Her mother has ongoing health issues, and Carrie needs money to help her. She worked for the company for the past year and was in this project for six months.

Discussion Questions:

1. How will you determine each persons share from the bonus? Which theory of motivation may best guide us in our decision making? Discuss.

2. What is your final allocation of bonus distribution among the five employees? Explain.