Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2019
  • Working Paper
  • HBS Working Paper Series

From Dollars to Sense: Placing a Monetary Value on Non-Cash Compensation Encourages Employees to Value Time over Money

By: Ashley V. Whillans, Ryan Dwyer, Jaewon Yoon and Allan Schweyer
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:68
ShareBar

Abstract

When deciding where to work, employees may focus too much on salary and not enough on non-cash benefits such as paid time-off, potentially undermining their long-term happiness. We propose a simple solution to encourage employees to recognize the value of non-cash benefits: list the financial value of non-cash compensation. Results from one archival data set (n = 42,271) and eight studies (n = 3,190) provide evidence for these ideas. First, as expected, employees who receive non-cash compensation are happier than employees who do not. Yet, prospective employees underestimate the happiness benefit of non-cash benefits. Second, and most critically, prospective employees are more likely to choose jobs with greater non-cash benefits and lower salaries when the cash value of these non-cash benefits are listed. Providing a mechanism for our results: organizations that list the cash value of non-cash benefits are perceived as caring more about their employees and about work-life balance. We document a boundary condition: listing the cash value of non-cash rewards effectively shifts employment preferences only when the starting salary of the job is sufficiently high. These findings provide the first evidence that listing the cash value of non-cash rewards increases the attractiveness of non-cash compensation.

Keywords

Non-cash Compensation; Salary; Benefits; Time; Money; Compensation and Benefits; Wages; Work-Life Balance; Perception; Decision Making; Happiness

Citation

Whillans, Ashley V., Ryan Dwyer, Jaewon Yoon, and Allan Schweyer. "From Dollars to Sense: Placing a Monetary Value on Non-Cash Compensation Encourages Employees to Value Time over Money." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-059, January 2018. (Updated January 2019.)
  • Read Now

About The Author

Ashley V. Whillans

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • 2022
    • Faculty Research

    The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Satisfaction of Workers in Low-Wage Jobs

    By: Elizabeth R Johnson and Ashley V. Whillans
    • July 2022
    • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

    The Developmental Origins and Behavioral Consequences of Attributions for Inequality

    By: Antonya Marie Gonzalez, Lucia Macchia and Ashley V. Whillans
    • May 2022
    • Lancet Public Health

    Policy Stringency and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Analysis of Data from 15 Countries

    By: Lara B. Aknin, Bernardo Andretti, Rafael Goldszmidt, John F. Helliwell, Anna Petherick, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Daisy Fancourt, Elkhonon Goldberg, Sarah P. Jones, Ozge Karadag, Elie Karam, Richard Layard, Shekhar Saxena, Emily Thornton, Ashley Whillans and Jamil Zaki
More from the Authors
  • The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Satisfaction of Workers in Low-Wage Jobs By: Elizabeth R Johnson and Ashley V. Whillans
  • The Developmental Origins and Behavioral Consequences of Attributions for Inequality By: Antonya Marie Gonzalez, Lucia Macchia and Ashley V. Whillans
  • Policy Stringency and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Analysis of Data from 15 Countries By: Lara B. Aknin, Bernardo Andretti, Rafael Goldszmidt, John F. Helliwell, Anna Petherick, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Daisy Fancourt, Elkhonon Goldberg, Sarah P. Jones, Ozge Karadag, Elie Karam, Richard Layard, Shekhar Saxena, Emily Thornton, Ashley Whillans and Jamil Zaki
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College