How to Keep Incentives From Becoming Entitlements (Downloadable Version Only!)

Many managers are hesitant to use incentives in the workplace because of a fear of what it may lead to in the way of increased expectations on the part of employees. The logic goes: "If I give them something extra for doing what I expect them to do, I will have to keep giving them more and more in the future to simply maintain what they are doing now." Such managers are afraid that the use of incentives in general--money or otherwise--is basically a slippery slope that once begun, can never be contained.