Rewards and Incentives

 
Who's really effective at the office?
To get a handle on that question, a handful of bosses are taking decision-making power out of the executive suite and asking employees to help identify—and reward—talent by experimenting with internal markets in which workers "invest" in co-workers' performance and ideas.
Coffee & Power, a San Francisco odd-jobs start-up, granted each of its 15 full- and part-time employees 1,200 stock options this past January, to distribute among co-workers in whatever way they chose. A worker can plunk all his options onto one colleague or split them among the group, so individual bonuses are tied to how co-workers perceive each other's work.