Page 66 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

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Reward and Recognition Programs Don’t Work

I bother working harder if I don’t get anything for it?” The
discretionary effort of these employees actually dips below
what it was before the program.

In the end, while you may have minimally reinforced a few of
your most motivated people, your program has had no impact on
your poor performers and served to decrease the motivation of
the middle employees, who represent the greatest potential to
increase your overall human capital. I realize that this may be
difficult to accept, but it’s true: traditional reward and recogni-
tion programs that seek to motivate employees actually do more
harm than good.

Leaving Your Reward and

Recognition Programs Behind

To summarize, traditional recognition and reward programs
based on the principles of operant conditioning are doomed before
they commence. Under the best of circumstances, such programs
are relatively benign and reinforce only those employees who are
already the most engaged and productive. More likely they lead
to breakdowns in team functioning, decrease creativity and risk
taking, create stress for supervisors, and decrease the motivation
of the very employees who present the greatest opportunity to
increase your human capital. Thus, organizations spend valuable
resources creating and administering programs that, at best, pro-
vide no return on their investment and are most likely to produce
a negative one. If carrots don’t work, what does?