Effective Ways to Reward Employees

It depends if you want a short-term fix or not!

Got some performance problems and looking for ways to reward employees? Looking for a quick fix? Sorry, wrong page!

To inspire people to consistently, and over a long period, give of their best requires far more than any reward program can deliver.

There are probably two main reasons why you want to look for ways to reward your employees.

1. Because you want to say thanks for a job well done.
2. The second is to induce people to perform at a higher level than they might otherwise.

Whilst on the surface it may seem, that "to say thanks" is the more noble reason for introducing an employee reward program, both of them have flaws and challenges.

Ultimately both reasons perpetuate the command and control style organization: do this and you'll get that. It's a form of control and manipulation, but using golden cuffs.

Most reward programs, require someone to stand in judgement over who 'deserves' to be rewarded, what should be rewarded - whether effort or results should be rewarded, whether the team or the individual should be rewarded, how much the reward is worth.

How does it feel to you when you are being judged - when you are waiting to find out if someone else has decided if you've been 'good' enough to 'win' the prize?

How much more powerful is it when an individual takes responsibility for judging his/her own performance against the goals/standards/targets they've previously set?

There are many ways to reward employees that result in short term improvement

Certainly, from your own experiences you will know that given enough inducement (or threat) you can generally get people to change their behaviour and their performance. So, in the short-term absolutely reward programs do work.

But what about ways to reward employees that give long-term improved performance?

What happens when you run out of rewards? Or when the reward becomes an expectation rather than an unexpected gift - will you continue to get the performance level you desire? Probably not. This is where the vast majority of reward programs fail.

Are these easy questions to answer? Of course not!

Which is why most organizations look for quick and easy ways to reward employees which provide almost instantaneous results. It is far more arduous to look at what may be causing people to under-perform and then change systems so that the work people do provides them with the intrinsic desire to perform at high levels.

You Can Reward Employees Far Beyond Reward & Recognition Programs:

To encourage your people to be intrinsically motivated rather than relying upon external bribes you could look at things such as:

Work Content

• Meaningful
• Diverse
• Challenging
• Involvement in Decision-Making

• Advancement
• Training & Development
• Employment Security

• Flexible work hours
• Work from Home
• Employee Facilities

• Base Salary
• Bonus
• Share Ownership

Go to "Organization Structure and Work Processes" to find out more about creating a workplace that encourages people to be motivated and inspired to deliver their best consistently.

Many people work in jobs that are not necessarily the best paying in the world, but remain because of the love of the job they are doing and the environment in which they are doing it.

Praise

One of the measures of self-esteem is whether a person requires praise in order to feel good about their performance. Unfortunately, most people's self-worth is so poorly developed that they don't trust their own opinion of their worth and seek acknowledgement from others. One of the greatest gifts you can give to your people is to guide them in how to value their own opinion. To be able to value their own praise for a job well done. Then they won't need to look for external recognition.

As a leader, I often said to people: "You need to get good at acknowledging yourself and your own efforts. Because as a self-managing team there often won't be a 'boss' around to make judgment or even notice how well you've done."

In fact we set up a reward program that enabled people to choose something that they would like to reward themself with when they felt they deserved it. It was up to the individual to communicate to his/her team, what s/he did and what s/he was going to reward him/herself with. Certainly it led to some vigorous discussions among team members! But ultimately the program was about them accepting self-responsibility for monitoring their own performance and rewarding themselves accordingly.

Praise Guidelines

1. Avoid putting yourself in the judges seat. For example, rather than "I am so pleased with ..." it is far more empowering to say "You must be so pleased with ..."


2. Praise the person's behaviour not them rather than "you are such a great team player" more "you support the team well when you ..."


3. Adding to the previous - make it specific! The person should know exactly what it is you are praising. Rather than "you are well prepared for meetings" "the meetings run smoothly because you have prepared the agenda and materials"

Problems & Challenges:

Alfie Kohn in his groundbreaking book Punished by Rewards quotes study after study which show that rewards actually inhibit things such as creativity, risk-taking, information sharing, quick problem-solving and encourages directive command and control type behaviour from supervisors. Here are the top 10 watchouts:

1. Dissatisfaction and poorer performance are often the results e.g. when an expected bonus level is not achieved even though a great deal of effort was expended or rewards are distributed in an inequitable manner. See Punished by Rewards for many studies that show the link between rewards and lowered performance


2. Rewards work best for short-term behaviour changes. If you want lasting change a rewards programme probably won't work - as soon as the reward stops the behaviour will probably cease as well


3. Rewards generally don't change people's values, attitudes and feelings. You may get short-term behaviour change, but not long term commitment


4. They don't get to the root cause of why people may be apathetic or performing at a mediocre level - which may mean you need to find more and more goodies to induce people to continue to perform


5. Rewarding everyone equally can lead to conflict and resentment between team members, conversely award nights can, in an instant, transform the vast majority of people there into losers


6. Can create competition, envy, hostility and distrust between groups and group members


7. Rewarding employees for results over which they have limited control can lead to cynicism


8. They become an expectation rather than a reward. For example if each week a gift certificate is given for achieving a safety standard it is no longer a reward but rather an expectation.


9. A belief that only the 'chosen few' will be acknowledged


10. What you reward is what you get - so be very careful about what you reward - for example there is a huge difference in organizational results between rewarding people for gaining knowledge and rewarding people for sharing knowledge

Ways to reward employees who have to do boring tasks

Certainly in every organization, in fact in every society, there are tasks that are inherently boring, repetitive or even distasteful. Rather than manipulate a person through rewards into performing the task it is much more respectful and certainly less manipulative if you:

1. Acknowledge that the task is probably one that is not intrinsically desirable


2. Remind the person how this task fits into the bigger picture and its importance


3. Empower the person to manage how the task will be performed

Finally, if you feel you must have a reward program then keep these guidelines in mind.

Reward and Recognition Programs are most effective when:

1. The program is straightforward and easy to understand and with little emphasis given to it (i.e minimize the fuss!)


2. The people have confidence in the basis of the acknowledgement i.e. they know exactly what it takes to receive acknowledgement


3. Each person has a role in judging his/her own performance


4. The individual is clear about the manner and techniques that they used to achieve the outcome (and that the leader/organization would like to see re-enacted in the future).


5. he person contributes to the reward process and decides upon the type of reward that s/he would most like to receive. One of the best things you can do is to give the receiver the choice of reward that suits his/her specific circumstances.


6. The reward follows closely to the actual performance.

Ways to Reward Employees Summary

Ultimately you need to decide: "Will the program we've decided upon, destroy or build our culture?"

An effective and well thought through rewards program enables you to find ways to reward employees and say thank you whilst encouraging more of the behaviour, thinking and attitudes that enable your business to be successful.

When you've set in place ways to reward employees that meet the criteria above then success will be measured in terms of increased productivity, satisfied customers, improved profitability and importantly employee morale!

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Designing A High Performance Workplace
Performance Management Developing Team Values Talent Management

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