Incentive Primer: Recognition and Rewards Are More Than an Add-On August 15, 2008
By Tom Miller
A Recognition and Reward System (RRS) is often an add-on, something companies get around to introducing after they make some progress on finding and hiring the right workforce. But it's an essential element in keeping those employees—and keeping them engaged. Key components of an RRS are typically a strategy that aligns with organizational goals, support from senior management, appropriate training and communication, attractive awards and an administrative and reporting system.
A strong RRS supports desired organizational behaviors and creates a "rallying point" for individual and corporate success. When they are designed and implemented correctly, they can be strong tools to grow employee engagement. Before we look at the role of an RRS, let's define what employee engagement looks like.
Engaged employees do two things very well—they produce a high volume of high-quality work and they help create change. The quality and volume of work is a result of a focus on the present and an understanding of the actions that lead to their work success and the success of the company. The ability to create change is driven by the awareness of all the components that make up their work and their willingness to challenge the status quo when they see an opportunity to do things better. An engaged employee owns his work and may regularly contribute beyond his exact job description. He generally holds a significant amount of tacit knowledge regarding how things get done in his sphere of influence and is happy to share that knowledge.
Interestingly, research indicates that most people want to be this kind of worker. The challenge faced by most companies is the creation of an environment where the path to employee engagement is purposely facilitated and workers are not frustrated.
This is the place where an RRS comes into play. A well-designed RRS exists to support and grow a company of engaged employees. An RRS regularly reinforces the behaviors called out in the corporate culture. It's important that the system be built around behaviors. Why? Because everyone in the organization has a chance to participate when it's about behaviors.
Certainly, a company should recognize its high achievers based on performance and results; but there are far too many people who would have zero opportunity for recognition if a company only recognized easily observable high performance. The classic example is recognizing those in sales roles but not those in operational roles. Are the sales roles more important than the operational roles? Of course not, but it is generally easier to identify and recognize performance in sales than it is in operations.
It is a great deal of work to create a true enterprise-wide RRS initiative. Though it involves just five steps, it is a complex process that will, in some ways, serve as a "cultural audit" for the organization. At the end of the day, a company will come to a core set of beliefs in what makes its enterprise important and why anyone would want to be a part of its effort in the marketplace.
However, it's vital to remember that the road to engagement travels through compensation, benefits and work environment before it gets to recognition (think about Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy). An organization cannot recognize its way out of a bad business model or underpaid employees. Recognition will not be valuable to anyone who is worried about his or her financial condition or safety. Fair compensation and benefits, clarity around job security and a safe work environment are the prerequisites of an RRS. Once the foundations of the basic employee value proposition are in place, a strong Recognition and Reward System can be a wonderful lever to develop highly engaged employees.
Tom Miller founded The Miller Company in 1992, is currently president of Recognition Professionals International (www.recognition.org) and is a cofounder of The Recognition Council (a Strategic Industry Group within the Incentive Marketing Association). Contact Tom at tom.miller@millercom.com.
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