Worker Incentives in the Banking Industry

Abstract

This study shows that monetary incentives together with performance disclosures lead to significant increases in effort and productivity in the multi-branch banking industry. Our results are based on an incentivized credit card campaign run by a commercial bank in which employees were paid a piece-rate if they sold a credit card to a customer. Later in the campaign, the head office started to provide daily performance reports for all branches of the bank. The campaign ultimately resulted in a significant 12.5% increase in the average daily productivity of branch staff and productivity changes found were heterogeneous across different branches.