Incentives and Other Rewards: How they are used to help Teams

Incentives and Other Rewards:

How they are used to help Teams

Khai Minthang

Beaumont, TX

Introduction: Behavior that’s rewarded is repeated. The idea is that when you positively acknowledge good performance that you see it happening again. That is the principle of positive reinforcement. Appreciation and acknowledgement of the efforts of another human being is one of the most powerful gifts you can give to someone. Conversely, wrong behaviors that are not fixed will keep happening again. Every time a staff member who habitually does sloppy work makes another error, you step in and fix it. Behavior that is rewarded is repeated.

Incentives: Traditionally employees earn a living based on the pay scale for their position, modified by changeable factors such as labor market conditions, where a position fits within the hierarchy of an organization, and how long a person has been in a job. Your base salary is what you see in your paycheck every pay period, no matter how many good days or bad days of performance you have experienced. Unless you are being terminated, your base pay remains constant until your manager and organization give you a raise, such as once a year.

Incentives have long played an important workplace role motivating, rewarding, and energizing employees and providing employers with powerful tools to retain valuable employees. They are designed to inspire employee loyalty and increase productivity over the long term. Incentive pay is a form of variable compensation. Sometimes called a bonus, it is a component of wages that varies by performance and is proffered in addition to your base salary. Incentive pay in a way of rewarding good performance with money rather than with promotion, and without adding costs to base salary structures. Incentive pay for teams can be a strong management tool that drives team-work and performance. It is also a tool that can be helpful when you are working with work-unit teams and project teams.

Some objectives to aim for with a team incentive plan are:

1. Stimulating increases in productivity. Stimulating increases in productivity.

2. Rewarding key behaviors that you need for good productivity.

3. Increasing an understanding of business needs and the kind of performance required for meeting those needs.

4. Aiding in the retention of good performers

An incentive pay plan can turn some people off. Some team members take great pride in their work and don’t view money as a motivator for this pride. They approach their work with passion and treat what they do as a special craft. For some of these people, extra pay in the form of incentives is an insult. They are already getting paid, and that is fine. The way they see it, they don’t need some sort of bribe to produce good results.

Recognizing Achievements: Research from Fred Herzberg and many others repeatedly shows that money is not the primary reward for working adult. Money alone is not the be-all and end-all for team member motivation and retention. A sincere thank-you means a lot. You can hand out a dozen job-well-done trophies, but unless you make the recipient feel that the reward was heartfelt, you are not truly recognizing the individual. A recent national survey by Robert Half International shows that limited praise and recognition is the primary reason employees leave their jobs today, ahead of compensation concerns, limited authority, and personality conflicts. Employees expect to be recognized when they do good work. This is a truism supported by dozens of studies and surveys, and easily confirmed by asking almost employee. Thanking employees for doing good work increases the likelihood that they will want to continue to work for your organization, and it serves as a catalyst for attracting talented new recruits.

Other Rewards at a Little or No Expense: Decide how to determine who receives rewards. Careful thought should be given to this part of the plan. You want the goals you set to be attainable through hard work and dedication, but you don’t want them to be so easy that they lose their meaning. And the goals you rewarded should be ones that reinforce the company’s mission as a whole, not necessarily the individual’s personal goals.

Rewards work best when they are meaningful. Be creative with your rewards. Your employees will appreciate it. The following ideas for showing appreciation for team performance generally cost little or nothing in terms of dollars and require only a bit of time and attention; however, they sometimes are the best investment you can make in motivating team members.

1. Write a thank-you note

2. Offer a personalized gift, such as a poster or book

3. Buy movie tickets

4. Give a framed photograph of an employee event

5. Hold a lunch in the employee’s honor

6. Provide them time off or extra vacation days

7. Create a bulletin board that contains the photos of top employees

8. Bring bagels or doughnuts to a team meeting to honor the employee

9. Give fruit bowls or freshly baked chocolate chip cookies

10. Hold a meeting just to discuss how good a job the person is doing

11. Allow employees to take a long lunch or have a short workday

12. Offer a round of applause from the team

13. Hold a celebration

14. Designate an employee-of-the-month parking spot

15. Print a photo and brief article about the stellar performer in the company newsletter

16. Arrange events that involve family members, such as a children’s fair or holiday bazaar.

Conclusion: Recognizing accomplishments the same way every time gets pretty stale; everyone likes variety. So, periodically ask team members, “Money aside, when the team performs well, what should we do so that people know that they are appreciated?” Keep few notes on what team members tell you, and remember: What motivates one person may not be the same for everyone else. Whether you are managing individuals or teams, recognizing and rewarding the right behaviors is the point. Taking good performance for granted never has been much of a motivator.

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Bibliography:
1. Bob Nelson and Dean Spitzer, The 1001 Rewards and Recognition Field Book (New York: Workman Publishing, 2003)
2. Marlene Caroselli, Leadership Skills for Managers (New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000)
3. Max Messmer, Motivating Employees for Dummies, (New York: Wiley Publishing Inc., 2001)
4. Blair Singer, The ABC’s of Building Business Team That Works (New York: Warner Business Books, 2004)