Fintech startup to introduce ‘attitude bonus’: Good but tricky initiative?

To measure the progress, there is a tracker-based system which is managed through one of EnKash's product propositions. (Illustration by Suneesh Kalarickal)

Ever thought of getting paid for your "attitude"? That’s precisely what Mumbai-based fintech startup EnKash is rolling out. It is launching an incentive programme called attitude bonus.

Employees at EnKash will be awarded 2X bonus, over and above their annual pay for going beyond the call of duty, and winners will be announced every month.

Some examples include utilising additional skills and expertise to make a significant contribution to departments other than your own. For example, one would expect an executive with just a few years of experience to only support his immediate seniors and perform his day-to-day tasks.

However, if he goes beyond this and meets a requirement expected from an experienced employee who could be from a different department, it would be an achievement.

How is attitude bonus different from other incentives?

While companies generally have performance and variable incentive programmes, they are included in the CTC (cost to company).

Attitude bonus is over and above the CTC and rewarded for the potential impact people can create in an organisation with innovative initiatives.

Further, usually R&R programs are largely manager-driven and have fixed timelines – like quarterly and yearly. Attitude bonus is a self- driven programme, which is run on a monthly basis and comes with monetary benefits.

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At EnKash, the discussion and conceptualisation of attitude bonus started close to eight months ago, as a joint effort between the senior management of and its co-founders.

The idea is to have a mechanism to not only record but to also encourage employees who go beyond their call of duty consistently.

To measure the progress, there is a tracker-based system, which is managed through one of EnKash's product propositions. It is in the beta phase, pending announcement, and targets employees of its corporate customers.

How does it work?

This system allows employees to create new requests, detailing how they have gone beyond their call of duty. These requests then go to the ‘Attitude Bonus Reward Committee’, comprising the senior leadership team backed by the founders who announce the qualifiers.

“This unique and first-of-its-kind programme is consistent with the way we at EnKash would like to be recognised – as an organisation where people are not restricted to doing exceptional work, but even going beyond,” says Naveen Bindal, Co-founder, EnKash. He hopes this initiative will help in talent retention as well.

A post-pandemic baby?

The way performance management was conducted during the pre-pandemic days is news of the past. Fuelled by situations caused by a ‘talent war’, ESOPs, luxury cars, two-time appraisals, etc have found their place in HR strategies to retain crucial talent.

Hence, talent experts say evolution initiatives like "attitude bonus" is natural.

Among organisations that differentiate between executive and non-executive incentive design plans, the payout for the non-executive population is largely based on organisational performance.

For instance, 40 percent of organisations base payouts primarily on organisational performance results, 27 percent balance them equally between organisational and individual performance and 21 percent base payouts solely on organisational performance results.

Only 10 percent use individual performance results as a primary basis and a mere 1 percent use only individual performance, said WTW, a UK-based global advisory, broking and solutions company.

“With the advent of the pandemic and later, performance was not about looking at the achievement of organisational goals and productivity or selecting star performers, but it became something more than numbers and something about attitude,” says Dr Deepak Sharma, associate professor at Bengaluru-based Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), a management institute.

He feels things have moved from individual performance to collaboration and collective performance and thinking. “Today's race is for performance and not for identifying performers. To be precise, it is more about ‘star performance’ than ‘star performer’.

Will it boost productivity?

When UK-based discount voucher online platform Vouchercloud asked around 2,000 office workers whether they consider themselves to be productive throughout the entire working day, 79 percent admitted they weren’t. Just a fifth, 21 percent, believed to be so.

The study then asked respondents: "if you were to state a figure, how long do you think you spend productively during work hours daily?" The results revealed the average answer to be "2 hours and 53 minutes" of actual productivity in the workplace across all respondents.

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While EnKash will not completely associate the initiative just with productivity, it is anticipating it would impact it positively.

EnKash’s initiative will assist people in evaluating their efforts in light of impact analyses and quantitative measures, which will ultimately increase the employee's visibility with senior leadership and management, says Ajoy Thomas, VP and Business Head of staffing major TeamLease Services.

What are the potential pitfalls?

For one, Thomas says such bonuses can affect the work-life balance among peers and it can negatively affect employees' job satisfaction. “This would not be feasible as excellence pulls in one direction, rewards in another.”

For example, he says if you tell employees that their incomes will depend on productivity or performance rating and that the focus would be more on the numbers, employees can manipulate the schedule for completing tasks or even engage in non-productive work.

While an attitude bonus may help encourage productivity, experts say it can also bring certain disadvantages to a company and its workers, if not executed well.

One potential drawback is that it can create unrealistic expectations among employees, as per Kunal Patil, Co-founder & CEO, WorkIndia, a job portal for blue and grey-collar workers.

Also, he adds that employee bonuses may have the unintended consequence of encouraging rivalry rather than cooperation among workers. “It is more likely to result when a company already has a toxic workplace culture. Additionally, it may result in subpar work for employees.”

Not the same, but cybersecurity startup SafeHouse Tech also has a somewhat similar approach. It encourages employees to engage and collaborate with each other in cross-functional projects.

“This gives our employees a platform to proactively take ownership of newer responsibilities and perform them, a basis on which we also incentivise them regularly,” says Ruchir Shukla, MD India, SafeHouse Tech.

Hailing EnKash’s initiative, he feels the bonus could help boost employees’ morale, and develop a sense of teamwork amidst healthy competition.

However, he fears it could also lead to burnout at the workplace as people can put pressure on themselves to over-deliver for such programmes and they could feel overworked or dissatisfied when not rewarded.

It's only for startups?

Whether it's about salary transparency or period leaves or allowing nap time for employees, startups have always led the way.

However, EnKash’s Bindal feels an ‘attitude bonus’ can be implemented irrespective of the size of the company. “The methodology would vary, but such incentives can certainly be applied.”

Running a startup himself, Shukla of SafeHouse Tech feels otherwise. “Incentivising and such rewards would work best for a growing startup where employees are open to experimenting with different skills and roles and are also bound to fill more roles at once.”

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Shukla points out that it could be challenging, given a large number of employees, which means more evaluations, more people needed to handle the programme, and more time-consuming.

Echoing the same, WorkIndia’s Patil feels there is a long hierarchy and there is a dedicated team for each task in MNCs.

“The work you do may be a small portion of a larger process that you may not even be entirely aware of,” he says, adding, “Thus, volunteering for tasks beyond your own profile’s KRAs to expedite the work without creating confusion seems difficult.”