Study links uncertain pay to overwork

emlyon business school researchers say uncertainty around pay can push people to keep working even when the sensible option is to stop and recover. In a new study, professors Gordon Sayre and Brice Corgnet found that workers facing uncertain pay were less likely to take breaks than those on fixed-rate rewards, even when the total amount earned was the same across groups.

The research draws on five experiments involving 1,476 participants. In each, participants completed simple paid tasks and were given the option to stop working and switch to a low-effort recovery activity such as browsing the internet. The study held average pay constant while changing how predictable it was. In the certainty condition, participants were paid 12 tokens for each correct answer. In the uncertainty condition, they received a random number between 1 and 23 tokens, producing the same average return.

As the experiments progressed, the value of continuing to work dropped sharply. Participants on certain pay adjusted more quickly and chose to stop. Participants facing uncertain pay were much less likely to do so. In the first study, workers in the uncertainty group were 32.8% less likely to stop and engage in recovery. In a second study, gig economy workers were still 20% less likely to take a break under uncertain pay conditions. In one experiment, two thirds of participants kept working for an additional 10 minutes for an average return of just 1.92 cents.

Professor Sayre said: “Participants facing greater pay uncertainty work longer and delay recovery, even when financial rewards for continuing to work become negligible.”

The researchers said the effect was not driven by people enjoying the work more or preferring uncertain rewards. When given a choice, most participants preferred the pay certainty condition. Instead, the study found that uncertain pay increased feelings of financial scarcity, which kept people focused on earning and made it harder to prioritise recovery.

Professor Corgnet said: “Pay uncertainty increases perceptions of financial scarcity, causing people to work harder and neglect recovery as a way of hedging against this scarcity.”

The study suggests employers do not need to abandon performance pay to reduce the strain. The researchers said companies could lower the share of overall pay tied to uncertain outcomes, give clearer guidance on how rewards are earned, or smooth commissions and bonuses over longer timeframes. Those changes would make compensation more predictable without removing performance-linked incentives altogether.