To provide motivation or rewards to encourage specific behaviors, actions, or outcomes. In business, it involves creating systems of compensation, recognition, or benefits that align individual actions with organizational goals.
Formed from 'incentive' (from Latin 'incentivum' meaning 'that which sets the tune or incites') plus the suffix '-ize' (from Greek '-izein' meaning 'to make'). This verb form became popular in business contexts during the 1960s as companies developed more sophisticated motivation and compensation strategies.
Incentivizing is basically the art of making people want to do what you need them to do - but the tricky part is that poorly designed incentives often backfire spectacularly! The classic example is rewarding quantity over quality and then wondering why quality plummets.
Incentive structures historically benefited men: bonuses tied to face time (disadvantaged caregivers), promotion incentives aligned with male-typical career paths, risk-taking rewards (male-overweighted in finance).
Align incentives with diverse work patterns, measure outcomes not presence, include criteria women historically excel at (collaboration, risk management), audit for unintended gender gaps.
["motivate","reward","encourage"]
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