Keys to an Effective Program:

Employees not only want good pay and benefits, they also want to be valued and appreciated for their work, to be treated fairly, to do work that is important, and to have opportunities for advancement and involvement in the company. Recognition and reward programs play an important role in organizational success by helping attract and retain high-performing employees.

 

An effective recognition program should meet several essential criteria.

 

1. Management Commitment

Managers must commit credible and sufficient resources to any incentive program. The road to results begins with resources. Simply put, management backing is the key ingredient. Managers must dedicate the resources, including the time it takes to plan and execute a program. And managers must provide something else—give employees and supervisors the power to run the program.

 

2. Link to Bottom-Line Results of the Company

To be effective, any program must connect with the needs and expectations of the workforce, as well as the company’s overall goals and strategies. If there is no direct link to the bottom-line results of the company and no performance measures to establish this link, employees will be left wondering why the company is offering a program that is so disconnected from their day-to-day reality and the company will get no meaningful payback on its investment.

 

3. Recognized Value of Awards to Employees

Employees must understand the mission—why the incentive program is being launched. They must be convinced that the chosen recognition system is appropriate for the sacrifices that will be expected in order to achieve the program’s goals. The way to make this happen and get “buy-in” at the same time is to give employees ownership of the program. Employees must have some opportunity to make decisions and exert control over the program’s direction. Any materialistic awards and rewards must be valued by all participants and perceived as having value, dignity and meaning. A recognition system begins to falter when employees start thinking that their actions are being insulted by inconsequential incentives.

 

4. Fairness/Equity in Distribution of Awards

The participants in the program must believe that the system of recognition is just and objective. To achieve this, all employees who meet the criteria outlined for receiving the award should be included and recognized. Some companies even include employees in the selection of incentive recipients and also in the determination of selection criteria.

 

5. Simplicity of Program

The entire incentive process should be thoroughly maintained with a minimum of administrative effort. Keep it simple. Any system that requires either excessive management control, financial calculations that require complex gyrations or sophisticated plans that require exceptional employee understanding will not achieve desired results.

 

6. Continuous Evaluation/Improvement

Programs must be continuously monitored in order to keep them relevant and current. The evaluative process should include a review of the following types of questions: Does the program provide rewards that are adequate, fair, competitive and appropriate? Have the program’s objectives been met? Has it helped to change processes and/or did it support the company’s other performance initiatives? Are there appropriate levels of communication? Was there a celebration? Do employees find the program to be meaningful? What would you do differently the next time? This evaluative process should be completed at the conclusion of every award cycle so that adjustments can be made to improve the system and also to update the program to retain employee interest.

 

What Makes a Good Reward? Be SSMART

Recognition can be delivered in a number of ways, but to be truly effective, it should be delivered in a SSMART way (with credit to Jim Brintnall for this acronym):

 

1. Supports Organizational Goals and Values

Any incentives or recognition awards will be most successful when they are congruent with the organization’s stated mission, vision, values and goals. It is important that employees see a clear connection between what management says is important and what is actually rewarded at work.

 

2. Sincere and Simple

Be sure that the awards are appropriate for your culture and that they are given in a sincere and heartfelt manner. Managers and supervisors often fail to give recognition because “they don’t know what to say.” A simple recipe for recognition can work magic in your organization: thank the employee by name; state what the employee did to earn the recognition; explain how you felt about the employee’s behavior; state how the behavior added value to the company; and thank the employee again by name. Calling the person by name and letting him or her know that you personally value the effort can be as motivating as the actual reward.

 

3. Meaningful

An employee who completes a two-year project should be rewarded in a more substantial way than an employee who simply does a favor for his or her manager. Beware of “canned” award or incentive programs. Company cultures differ greatly, and what works in one environment may fail woefully in another. The reward must be meaningful to the individual receiving it. Since all of us are different, it is incumbent on the person’s manager to learn enough about his or her subordinates to know what types of things motivate them and what they would find important. Beware, though, of the form letter. One quick thank you note on a manager’s personal stationery will have much more impact than a cup with the company’s logo and a form letter. The way the reward is delivered can make or break the program—people can be more motivated by a single act of personal consideration by their manager than by a large cash bonus that is delivered poorly.

 

4. Adaptable

In addition, certain groups of employees may not be motivated by all of the company’s incentives. As a result, it is important to offer a variety of incentives and recognition opportunities in order to meet the varying needs of the workforce. For example, Generation X employees (those born between 1966 and 1978 and who have earned a reputation for their lack of commitment to organizations in terms of time and loyalty) are more likely to be motivated by time off than money, while older workers will likely find the bonus incentives more attractive.

 

5. Relevant

The things that get rewarded are the things that get done. It is critical to decide what behaviors to reward and then to reward them consistently. Be specific as to why the reward is being given—what behavior occurred that is being reinforced?

 

6. Timely

The reward or recognition should be made as close to the time of the desired behavior as humanly possible in order to strengthen the link between the employee’s action and the result to the company.

 

Conclusions

The most effective ways to motivate employees to achieve the desired goals of the organization include creating an environment with strong, respectful and supportive relationships between the organization’s managers/supervisors and employees and a focus on genuine expressions of appreciation for specific employee achievements, service milestones and a day-to-day acknowledgement of performance excellence. In a nutshell, a positive employee reward and recognition strategy can be summed up by the following: nothing is better than a sincere “thank you for a job well done.”