You can develop your capabilities as a manger by better understanding different ways of motivating and rewarding employees. You can also better prepare for your own career by better understanding the employment factors that are important to you.

Using the following scale, honestly rate the importance of each of the types of incentives given. Next, administer the scale to one other individual -it can be anyone.

Discuss your own results along extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. Next, discuss the results of the additional individual administered the assessment. How would you motivate this individual if they were an employee reporting to you?

1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Extremely unimportant	unimportant	Somewhat unimportant	Neutral	Somewhat important	Important	Extremely important

2. Respect Me: 6 Other Individual: 7
4. Recognition Me: 6 5
6. Work-life balance Me: 7 7
8. Collegial work environment Me: 6 5
10. Doing work you love Me: 5 5

2. Stock options Me: 5 5
4. Spot rewards for good performance Me: 5 4
6. Profit sharing Me: 5 4
8. Skill-based pay Me: 5 5
10. Employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) Me: 5 5

Scoring:

Sum your responses to items 1 to 5. This is your intrinsic reward preference score: 30

Sum your responses to items 6 to 10. This is your extrinsic reward performance score: 25

Interpretation:

Scores on both scales can range from 5 to 35, with higher numbers reflecting greater preferences for that style of motivation and reward. Scores above 25 indicate strong preferences for that type of motivation and reward.