Page 55 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

26 Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work

threw a sweet sixteen birthday party at the restaurant for his
daughter and let Linda pick up the four-figure tab.
Are all sales representatives so unscrupulous? Of course not.
Do reward and recognition programs cause all employees to
cheat the system? No. However, the larger the reward, the more
likely it is that people are going to look for ways to bend rules
and work around the system to gain an advantage. I recognize
that these programs are created with the best of intentions in
mind, but their very nature can promote unwanted, unethical,
unscrupulous, and sometimes illegal behavior. I don’t think you
want programs that turn your employees into cheaters.

Reason 9: Programs Destroy Teamwork
I don’t mean to pick on salespeople, but corporate incentive pro-
grams often put this population at greatest risk for cheating and
creating significant collateral damage to team members and the
organization as a whole. This is particularly true when employ-
ees are compensated largely on individual commissions. In such
circumstances, team members are often viewed as competitors.
Car dealerships are well known for creating cutthroat environ-
ments and monthly programs that reward the top salespeople.
Invariably, such programs foster unhealthy competition and
undermine teamwork, which often comes across as unprofes-
sional to customers.
You may have already jumped to the solution of team-based
programs. In addition to the problems raised with the tube socks
examples, there are others. Within any team you are going to
have employees with different skill levels, commitment to the
organization, and interest in the carrot. Team members also dif-
fer in their commitments and responsibilities outside of work,
such as school-aged children, which limit their ability to exert
additional discretionary effort outside of normal business hours.
These factors result in some employees having the desire and