| Just Rewards
We’re about to let you in on the greatest management principle in the world. It is a simple rule that will save you hours of frustration and extra work. It can save your company thousands, maybe even millions of dollars. Are you ready? Here it is…
You Get What You Reward!
You may think that you are rewarding your employees to do what you want them to do – but are you really? Consider this example: Two employees: Jo and Sam. Jo is incredibly talented. Sam is a marginal performer. You give them both a similar project. Jo completes the project early with no errors so you give Jo two more projects. Sam’s project is late and full of errors. Because you are under a time crunch, you accept Sam’s results and correct them yourself.
Who is being rewarded? Sam or Jo? Answer—Sam! Sam has learned that substandard work that is late is okay. You, the manager, will personally fix it! Nice reward! Giving Jo more work for being on time with no errors is actually a punishment. If this situation continues, all your top performers eventually realize that doing their best work is not in their best interest.
The solution?
Know exactly what behaviors you want to reward and align the rewards with those behaviors. Here is an example of performance-based measures that a manager recognized and rewarded:
- Defects decrease from 25 per 1,000 to 10 per 1,000
- Annual sales increase by 20 percent
- Administrative expenses are held to 90 percent of authorized budget
- Mail is distributed in 1 hour instead of 1-½ hours
- Record systems are reorganized to make filing and retrieval more efficient
Here are some ideas for reinforcing behaviors that you want:
- Give them the benefit of the doubt. No one wants to do a bad job. Your job is to figure out what you can do to help them do a good job. Additional training, encouragement, and support should be among your first choices—not reprimands and punishment.
- Catch them doing things right. Managers often tend to focus on the things people do wrong. Instead, catch them doing things right. This will reinforce behaviors you want, and make them feel good about working for you and your company.
- Have high expectations for their abilities. If you believe your people can be outstanding, they will soon believe it. “I know you can do better,” will help people get back on course.
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