Hello Professionals,

We are about to draft an Reward & Recognition Policy for our company and hence, I shall be glad if few professionals can throw some light in view of the benefits of the recognition program alongwith few steps for an effective reward & recognition system.

Help anticipated shall be really thankful..

Kaushik

Dear Kaushik & Members,

Recognition can be defined as acknowledgement, appreciation, or approval of the positive accomplishments or behaviors of an individual or team. Recognition is one of the manager or supervisor’s most effective tools for fostering on-the-job motivation. Despite this, “only about 40 percent of North American workers say they receive any recognition for a job well done, and about the same percentage report they never get recognized for outstanding individual performance.” It’s no wonder, since only “50 percent of managers say they give recognition for high-performance.” (Kepner-Tregoe study, as reported by Kouzes and Posner in 1999).

Bob Nelson, in his book, Motivating & Rewarding Employees states the benefits of recognition are:

- Improved Communication
- Employees more likely to offer solutions & new ideas
- Better Cooperation
- Employees more likely to offer to help & go the “extra mile”
- Decreased Absenteeism and Turnover
- Higher employee job satisfaction and loyalty

In its report, Recognition Best Practices, Association of Quality Participation states the four basic steps to recognition are Identify the candidate, select the appropriate form of recognition, deliver the recognition, receive the recognition

Aubrey Daniels’ book, Bringing Out the Best in People: How to Apply the Astonishing Power of Positive Reinforcement, outlines some important guidelines to increase the effectiveness of recognition.

Money is not the best incentive. Low budgets need not diminish recognition efforts; in fact, employees cite non-monetary recognition has a longer lasting impact than monetary rewards. One of the recently carried out surveys points out the following as the results of employees surveyed:

. 78% say it is very or extremely important to be recognized by their manager
. 84% say that providing non-monetary recognition as a reward has increased performance.
. 91% say that recognizing employees helps better to motivate them

Recognition needs to have personal value. The best form of recognition is that which is personal. Whether it be tangible or intangible, formal or informal, consider the nature of the accomplishment and the recipient.

Dear kaushik, sumit, mark & members,

After glancing thru the issue on rewards & recognition, the only  thing that has to be sternly observed is that recognition must be earned. When recognition efforts backfire, at times it is because staff members believe that it was not appropriately earned or it was not focused on accomplishments that they saw as meaningful. Therefore, one has to ideally strive for a balance between group and individual recognition.

Regards,

srini

The year-long research project conducted by CIPD-London involved analysing the reward and recognition practices in a range of 22 customer service sites. Some 800 staff, in both front-line and management roles were included, located in 15 private, public and voluntary sector organisations.

The findings indicate that:

Organisations with the best customer service make extensive use of performance-related pay and team-based rewards and recognition.

These organisations also emphasise the career development of staff and work–life balance issues.

There are few, if any, differences between reward and benefit policies for managers and customer service staff in these organisations.

Contingent pay is much more likely to be based on customer satisfaction and service quality than on productivity alone in the organisations providing the best customer service.

Employees in these organisations generally indicate a high level of satisfaction with their supervision and like a strong emphasis on customer service.

When employees see their organisation as being fair to, and looking after, them, encouraging open discussions about ways of working and how they can be improved and involving them in decision-making, employees in customer service-based organisations are more likely to be satisfied with their pay.

When organisations provide a high level of feedback on performance and supervisors are warm and supportive, employees are also likely to be satisfied with the praise and recognition they receive.

Satisfaction with pay and recognition is associated with employees having high levels of commitment to their organisations – feeling proud about the organisation they belong to, intending to continue working there and feeling a strong sense of attachment to the organisation.

When they see their organisations as being fair to, and looking after, them and as emphasising good customer service, employees have high levels of commitment to their organisations.

There is a wide variation between different customer service organisations with regard to employee satisfaction with pay, praise and recognition.

There is a similarly wide variation between different customer service organisations in the extent to which employees see them as being fair to, and looking after, them.
Customer service organisations are rated as poor by employees in relation to the extent to which they are involved in decision-making.

The findings show that just getting the reward aspects right isn’t enough. Successful reward and recognition policies can contribute to organisational effectiveness, and the report confirms that team rewards, warm and supportive supervisors, valuing and respecting staff, and providing equitable and fair payment systems all enhance customer service.

But they need the backing of appropriate people management practices, such as involving customer service staff in decisions that affect their work, and the conditions in which they do it. The challenge for leaders in customer service organisations is to develop their organisational cultures in order to implement reward and recognition practices effectively. Customer service organisations must ensure that staff are rewarded and recognised for delivering high-quality customer service. This is easily said, but we frequently don't understand how it's most effectively done.

Prof.Lakshman Madurasinghe