Page 59 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

30 Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work

Reason 12: Giving Gifts Is Not a
Reinforcement Program
Sherry was the part-time human resources manager for a com-
puter start-up company with about thirty employees. Joe, the
company CEO, shared that he was concerned about company
morale and asked if she had any ideas. She knew about positive
reinforcement and decided to surprise the employees by hand-
ing out twenty-dollar gift certificates for the movies on a Fri-
day afternoon. The employees loved it—what a nice surprise!
The following Monday she and the CEO could see how much
more enthusiastic people appeared and decided to hand out gift
cards to a chain restaurant with the paychecks that Friday. The
employees were visibly appreciative, but come Monday they did
not seem as motivated as the prior Monday. That Friday she left
twenty-dollar gas cards on people’s desks.
Joe was a friend of mine and told me about their gift card
program. While he liked doing nice things for employees, he was
beginning to doubt whether it really was having any impact, and
they had already spent $1,800 in three weeks. I met with Sherry,
who shared that she was confused and concerned because the
program seemed to be losing its impact. After three weeks,
employees were not noticeably more enthusiastic than when
the program began. She was also quite taken aback when two
employees stopped by her cubicle to ask for their gift on Thurs-
day because they would not be around on Friday. Moreover,
some of the salespeople in the field who had heard about this
program complained because they were being left out.
I explained that she had not created a reward and recogni-
tion program; she had created an entitlement program. When
a reward is not contingent upon a behavior, it is a gift—not a
reinforcer. Gifts are nice, but they have very little impact on
behavior. Unfortunately, many reward and recognition initia-
tives have morphed into entitlement programs. Although such