I always find that study very funny. A great deal of people DO consider money a very good incentive (and an ever-increasing number consider "team events" an annoyance and would trade it all for more time for themselves/their families)...

What would you rather have given to you as an incentive: a raise, more free time or a weekly barbecue with the blokes from the office?

The answer is not to ask workers what they want, but rather examine how workers actually behave under the different circumstances.

How do you measure it? Both giving different incentives to different members of the team and giving random incentives every time will probably DEMOTIVATE people for obvious reasons (it will feel "unfair", "unpredictable", "random")

I guess a valuable scientific study would try to see the delta between what people like and what they think they want. Applying that in real teams though, has a lot more to do with the personal experience and ability to deal with peoples and teams. Some understanding of one own personality and psychology sure helps for getting that kind of ability.

If you have too small a team, you can't run an experiment on them. The sample size is too tiny.

I'm sorry, I forgot where I was. (I'm on HN, where things are slightly different)

Imagine being a regular joe employee: no equity, maybe a little bit of stock options, whose seen the price of things go up over the last 4 years little by little. Some things (health care, college savings, potentially rent/housing) costing a lot more than they did... while you see your department friends chipped away because of layoffs.

Maybe even getting your benefits cut little by little: the health insurance plan you had last year covered a little bit more, and was less expensive, than the one you have this year.

Money isn't everything, sure, but more office happy hours is a lot different from "Here's $50 more in your paycheck", or "Here's $5K lump sum as a quarterly bonus, thank you for your hard work"

The feeling of helplessness in this economy is probably a big part of the problem. In 2005, someone could feel like they had the option to switch employers, and routinely make that choice to stay. Now, that option is probably not available to most people, and perhaps they feel like they're under the gun.

I'm not sure why you got he down vote - it is a good question. From my perspective, prevailing wages should be paid (not below market value) - and the interpersonal stuff will help with retention and happiness more than big raises.

With that said - give me a stretch goal, and a huge bonus if I make it and I'm really happy. Most employers miss that bonus part.

Reading the article reminded me of my past life... I heard "treating one another with dignity and respect" several times a day.