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Merit-Based Rewards

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Merit-Based Rewards

October 7, 2014

This is an article replicated by Stephen Miller, but originally written by an MIT Sloan School of Management Professor, Emilio Castilla in 2005. The article talks about how a number of U.S. organizations are utilizing merit-based reward systems to monitor and improve employee performance with rewards. In the article both Castilla and Miller discussed why these systems are being utilized and how they increase racial bias among men and women, specifically among minorities and Caucasian employees Castilla, 2005; Miller, 2008). Miller also argues that merit-based performance systems reduce inequality; research performed in another of Castilla’s articles, Gender, Race and Meritocracy in Organizational Careers examined the link between performance appraisals and earnings increases based on personal data from a large service organization located here in the U.S (Castilla, 2005, p. G1). It highlighted that both white minorities (women and men) earned the same scores on performance appraisals but the women were being paid a lower reward than the men.
Miller (2008) also stated that this type of biased can be overcome by increasing accountability and transparency company-wide (para. 9). Based on the research conducted, the results showed that decisions made regarding pay and performance appraisals were “performance reward bias” (Miller, 2008, para. 6). This type of biased presented false meritocracies, subjectivism, and unfairness presents challenges for employers who utilized performance appraisals within their organization. Furthermore, he stated that although merit-reward policies create the appearance of meritocracy; they create a greater opportunity for the employees and employer (para 7). Overall there is a positive relationship among performance, wage and wage growth. The result of the study shows that there is disparity of salary even when men and women (minorities and Caucasian) employees perform the same.
References
Castilla, E. J. (2005). Gender, race, and meritocracy in organizational careers. Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, G1-G6. doi:10.5465/AMBPP.2005.18778668
Miller, S. (2008). Can merit-based rewards increase gender and race bias? Society for Human Resource Management. Retrieved from http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/compensation/articles/pages/canmerit-basedrewardsincreasegenderandracebias.aspx

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