????他說：“激勵本來是蘿卜，但在這種情況下卻更像是大棒。”激勵的危險在于，員工會帶著薪酬被扣除的恐懼心理去工作，從而導致對獎勵機制的負面、而不是正面看法。比爾指出，要想讓員工對獎勵機制形成正面的看法，公司的領導者必須制定清晰的目標，然后讓員工明白，實現這些目標會使他們更有機會得到晉升或股票期權。

????“發薪水時，應該讓員工覺得這是在感謝他們為公司所作出的貢獻”比爾說。“這就是股票期權的價值所在，這就是分紅的價值所在。通過這些松散的掛鉤機制，我們可以使員工明白，他們也是這個集體的一部分。這是一種截然不同的心理。”

????比如，斯普林特（Sprint）就采用了松散掛鉤的獎勵機制。這家公司沒有將高管薪酬與環保項目直接掛鉤，但企業責任通信官馬可?維爾布魯根?蘭德在郵件中寫到，該公司里的一些部門在調整員工薪酬時會考慮許多不同的因素，而可持續性就是其中之一。斯普林特CEO丹?海塞曾說，他希望斯普林特的環保計劃能使該公司有別于電信行業里激烈的競爭對手。

????現在，越來越多的企業都加入了環保的行列。“我不認為這種情況只是曇花一現，”美世咨詢公司的瓦格納說。“我想，更多的企業和投資者正開始關注除了財務風險之外的其他風險。我們已經看到越來越多的公司都發布了自愿可持續性報告。”

????不過，在環保到底有何意義的問題上，企業、股東和消費者仍然有一些疑惑。美國鋁業公司屬于歷來最不環保的行業之一，而其薪酬激勵方法正是試圖為這樣一家公司設定積極的目標。但問題是，在采用這種方法的公司里，員工是否會真心支持環保，或者正如比爾擔心的那樣，員工是否會局限于數字，結果只見樹木，不見森林，反倒忽視了大局。或者就美國鋁業公司來說，忽視了對鋁土礦的開采。

????譯者：千牛絮

????"An incentive is a carrot, but it works like a stick," he says. The risk in incentives is that employees will act out of fear that their pay will be docked, which creates a negative instead of positive rewards system. A positive rewards system, Beer says, would require leaders at a company to outline clear goals and then communicate how meeting those goals could result in an increased chance for a promotion or stock options.

????"You want to get the compensation to them in a way that's a recognition of their engagement with the company," Beer says. "That's the value of stock options, that's the value of profit sharing -- those are loosely coupled ways in which we remind people they are part of this community. It's just a whole different psychology."

????Sprint (S), for example, uses a loosely coupled reward system. The company does not tie executive pay directly to its environmental projects, but corporate responsibility communications officer Marci VerBrugge-Rhind wrote in an email that some of its departments use sustainability as one of many different elements it considers when it adjusts its staffers' salaries. And Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has been vocal about how he hopes Sprint's green initiatives will distinguish the company from its fierce telecom industry competitors.

????Increasingly, companies are getting on board with green movements. "I don't think it's a fad at all," says Mercer's Wagner. "I think more boards and more investors are starting to ask about risks beyond financial risks. We've seen more and more companies issuing voluntary sustainability reports," she says.

????Yet there is still some confusion among corporations, shareholders, and consumers about what sustainability truly means. Alcoa's incentive pay approach is one attempt to set aggressive goals for a player in one of the most historically un-green industries. The question is whether or not employees at companies that use this method truly support a green mentality, or, as Beer fears, narrow in on the numbers and wind up missing the forest for the trees. Or, in Alcoa's case, missing the mine for the bauxite.