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How Rewards
Affect Performance

There Is No Positive Consequence to Them for Doing it

A LOT OF MANAGERS CONSIDER THE LAST POSSIBLE REASON FOR nonperfomance to be "There is no positive consequence to them" because they simply don't understand what a positive consequence is from the employee's point of view or how rewards affect performance.

Look at the situations listed here and ask yourself, from the performer's point of view, whether the consequences of these actions are rewarding.

I worked late last night to finish a report, but when I gave it to my boss this morning, he didn't even look up from his desk.

Six months ago I gave my boss a suggestion for improving the process, and I haven't heard anything from him since then.

I am trying to find the bugs in this program, but I am making no headway.

After my boss told me that bringing up unrelated material at staff meetings was making the meetings excessively long, I stopped doing that, but he said nothing to me afterward.

When I told my boss that we were going to complete the project on schedule, he said, "You don't get medals for doing what you are paid to do."

Since my boss warned me about shortages, I make a special effort so my cash drawer balances each day, but my boss never says anything to me about it.

The Problem

Obviously, there is an absence of positive consequence or reward to the performer in each of these instances. But many managers would say that getting paid for doing those things is the reward. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. According to human behaviour research, the weekly paycheck does not qualify as a reward that influences people's productivity. Psychologists once observed, "People don't come to work to get paid, they come to work so the pay doesn't stop." Additionally, in most business organizations, an employee can perform badly for a long period of time before the pay stops. Getting a weekly paycheck is like breathing; it only becomes important when it stops.

Human behaviour research indicates that people do things for which they are rewarded and, conversely, do not do those things for which they are not rewarded. In other words, performance that is rewarded will increase in its frequency; the reward reinforces the good performance. Rewards can be separated into two categories:
those externally delivered from someone else and those internally delivered by the person performing. The external rewards can be further separated as either tangible, such as jelly beans, a trophy, or money, or intangible, such as a verbal compliment, an expression of appreciation, or even a smile. All internal rewards are intangible, in that people talk to themselves about achieving a symbolic goal or status, such as:

"I am an honest person."

"I am a kind person."

"I am a hard worker."

"I am doing that task better than I used to do it."

"I am working less and getting away with it."

Research also suggests that these positive consequences or rewards, whether they be internal, external, tangible, or intangible, are most effective when they occur immediately following the specific action being rewarded and when the reward occurs at a high frequency. In other words, small awards received immediately and frequently seem to have more effect on performance than larger rewards delivered long after performance and infrequently. The only reward managers control that meets these high-frequency requirements is the manager's specific verbal compliments about performance. These compliments can be delivered at a high frequency, immediately following performance, and are very inexpensive. Unfortunately, they rarely occur by the hour or by the day in the normal workplace.

Some managers don't bother to verbally reward employee performance because they think compliments have no value. These managers don't realize that merely having the title makes each of them a significant other in the lives of his or her employees. "Significant other" is a clinical term used to identify the relative importance of one person in another person's life. Acceptance or rejection of a person from the significant other has a lot more value than the same response from anyone else. So your verbal or e-mail compliments about performance do influence performance.

Analysis of the work environment reveals that employees' rewards come from only three sources: the work itself, fellow employees, and the boss.

An example of rewards from the work itself would be when you polish your car. As the shine shows through the dirt and grime as you polish, you are rewarded for your polishing action. When you are finished, you might even say to yourself, "Gee, that looks great." The same kind of positive consequence can occur when computing figures, or during problem analysis, or when creating reports, or when repairing something. If the job is serving customers, it can be a comment of satisfaction by the customer.

An example of rewards from fellow employees would be your neighbor telling you what a nice polishing job you did on your car, such as, "Hey, that looks great; I wish I had the patience to do mine." Unfortunately, it is not common for employees to compliment fellow employees on their good work. Compliments are usually about avoiding work, such as, "I wish I was like you and didn't worry about the errors," or "I wish I could ignore weekly reports like you do," or "I envy your control; no matter how hectic things get around here, you just chug along at your own pace."

The third source is the boss's positive comments about performance, such as, "Thanks for putting in the extra time on that report," or "I know your project is not working out yet, but I appreciate that you are still trying," or "Thanks for restricting your comments to the meeting agenda."

Many tasks or entire jobs are difficult to do, are repetitive, boring, or even unpleasant to do. In such a situation, if the employees do not view their work as rewarding and the manager does not deliver rewards for the work activity, there is most likely no positive consequence to them for doing it.

One primary reason why managers do not use verbal compliments to manage performance is because of the ridiculous reasoning, "I pay them for doing that and they are supposed to do it, so why should I compliment them for doing it?" The answer is, "If you don't compliment them for doing it to reinforce it, they may not continue to do it even though you pay them for it." Managers should realize that rewarding employees for appropriate performance is a performance maintenance intervention. It helps you get what you pay for.

Preventive Solution

1. You must deliver "rewards" as reinforces for the performance you expect and pay for. Use verbal rewards describing specific performance as soon as possible after performance occurs to maintain the desired performance. To be able to do that, you must get out from behind your desk and look for achievements. Since most of the people working for you do at least 90 percent of the things they are supposed to be doing, it should be easy to catch them doing something right.

Here are some examples of rewarding performance:

I noticed you put in some extra time last night to complete this report on time; I really appreciate your effort.

Thank you for your suggestion for improving the process; that is the kind of teamwork that will help us succeed. I will get back to you as soon as we evaluate your suggestion.

I want to compliment you on your persistence. I notice that you are continuing to search for the bugs in that program. Keep up your effort and you will eventually succeed.

Thank you for limiting your discussion to the agenda material in today's staff meeting like I asked you to. Your cooperation helped the meeting go faster.

Another job well done. You certainly work hard to keep us on schedule; keep up the good work.

Since I mentioned the problem to you, you are doing a good job balancing out your cash and receipts each day. Thanks for your attention to detail.

2. When verbally rewarding subordinates, do it privately to avoid "apple polisher" comments (negative consequences) from fellow workers.

3. Your verbal compliments should be specific about the things done; avoid the generalizations, such as "good job," "terrific," and "atta boy."

4. If you take the time to ask people to improve their performance, you must take the time to check for improvement and verbally compliment any improvement. E-mail is good for quickly rewarding performance but not good for finding out what is happening because it generally avoids the give-and-take of a direct conversation which can pursue detailed information.

5. If someone gives you a five-part report on time but Section Four is inappropriate, separate the good from the bad in your comments. You might say, "Thanks for getting your report in on time. Sections One, Two, Three, and Five are exactly what we need. Let's talk about changes you can make to Section Four which will bring it up to the professional level of the rest of your report."

6. Don't wait for people to complete projects before you deliver positive consequences. Compliment them for doing the right things which will lead to completed projects. This is one way of managing performance to guarantee the end result.

7. Here are some examples of tangible rewards:

You did such a great job on that difficult report, here is an easy one.

You take so much effort to make your work accurate, I thought you should have the first new computer.

You work so hard and succeed so well at meeting our deadlines, I would like to buy lunch for you today.

You are one of the few people with 100 percent attendance. Why don't you leave twenty minutes early tomorrow to start the weekend?

Once you think about it, you will create your own larger list of tangible rewards and inexpensive verbal rewards. But please remember that the verbal compliments about work well done are the least expensive and are highly effective.

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