Expectancy Theory, Ch. 9, p. 291

The expectancy theory is one of the four best-known theories of employee motivation (p. 289). Expectancy theory makes three assumptions about employee behavior as stated on page 291:
1. Employees perceive a relationship between a specific work behavior and some form of payoff or reward; that is, the behavior is viewed as instrumental to obtaining the reward.
2. Each reward or positive outcome is associated with a value (or valence, in the language of the theory) that reflects how much the individual wants the reward.
3. Employees develop expectations about their ability to perform the desired behavior successfully.
When working in sales and consulting positions in the past, it was very clear that if you made your quota whether it was selling a product or your consulting services, you would be rewarded with a commission check and extra monetary bonuses. The communication of this type of work behavior was always established with goals set between the management and employee through a type of contract that was both communicated verbally and in written form. Usually, these goals were set for the level of the position you held and the team or department you worked for.
At one company, each month the president even communicated with the whole company the status of company level revenue goals and individual quota goals obtainment. He would send out a company-wide group voicemail stating where we were at with meeting the projected company revenue goals for that quarter and who brought in the largest sales and consulting dollars that month and where they were at with meeting their quota. This was another way of motivating the employees each month to achieve their quota to earn not only their monetary reward but the reward of recognition by upper management and fellow employees. Furthermore, if you made 100% of your yearly quota and more, you were eligible for the President’s Club. The President’s Club was an all expense paid trip to a vacation resort for you and a guest. I wonder if those days of the dotcom budgets and rewards are gone with today’s economy.