Page 52 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

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Reward and Recognition Programs Don’t Work

of them. Some supervisors refuse to play at all and mock the
program.
Perceptions of inequity among employees are impossible to
prevent. Even when program guidelines are clear and supervi-
sors willingly adhere to them, employees will complain of favor-
itism within and across teams. In reality, supervisors simply
cannot help but have biased perceptions of employees that result
in conscious or unconscious favoritism. As such, some employ-
ees are going to malign the program as “unfair” and often are
able to point to ready examples of inconsistent administration
that support their view. These tend to be the lowest-performing
employees. Depending on how loud their voice grows, their com-
plaints can seriously undermine the program and cause consid-
erable stress for supervisors.
Beyond the impact of these attitudinal differences, some
supervisors have limited opportunity to observe the targeted
behavior(s) due to work schedules, physical proximity, and
simply being overwhelmed with their “real” work. Another fac-
tor that contributes to inconsistent and unfair distribution of
rewards is having a fair playing field. For example, imagine a
sales incentive program that gives a bonus for those with sales
over “X” amount for a given month. Typically, more senior sales-
people have advantages such as better sales territories, prod-
uct lines, or even hours at their retail stores. Junior salespeople
begin with such a clear disadvantage that it is unlikely they will
even bother to participate. Goals have to be challenging but
reachable.
You may be thinking that one obvious remedy is to base the
program on a percentage increase. For example, any salesper-
son who increases his or her own average sales over the past
three months by 10 percent will win the reward. Now you give
the advantage to your poorest performers who have the greatest