Page 61 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

32 Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work

Obviously, jobs are not hobbies and employees get paid; how-
ever, the more emphasis put on the extrinsic reward, the less
internal motivation an employee feels toward the task. Reward
and recognition programs actually diminish the perceived value
of the task to the employee; psychologically the employee is
doing the task not because it is important but because he or she
can benefit from it materially. The more an employee values the
task, the more he or she will see it as personally rewarding and
be internally motivated, which explains why people who work for
nonprofit agencies generally report much higher levels of job sat-
isfaction than those employed by for-profit organizations, even
though those at the for-profits make considerably more money.
Supervisors would be wise to spend more time helping their
employees see the value and importance of their work.

Reason 15: Wrong Behaviors Are Rewarded
Many reward programs not only fail to reinforce the intended
behavior but also inadvertently reinforce the behavior they are
meant to discourage! As Steven Kerr wrote in his classic 1975
Academy of Management Journal article, “On the Folly of
Rewarding A, While Hoping for B,” “Numerous examples exist
of reward systems that are fouled up in that behaviors which
are rewarded are those which the one doing the rewarding is
trying to discourage, while the behavior he desires is not being
rewarded at all.”
For example, organizational leaders may speak of the impor-
tance of teamwork but then create programs that recognize
and reinforce individual performance. This may well result in
rewarding the individual who is the least team player. I recom-
mend that you examine your reward and incentive programs to
ensure that you are not accidentally reinforcing behaviors that
run counter to the values of your organization.