Over-emphasis on Reward and Punishment

Employee recognition

Does this sound familiar? It’s a Friday and another day at the office. Today is employee recognition day. As usual once a month the department manager gathers the whole group for a one hour meeting. Employees come to the faceless conference room and await the monthly employee recognition celebration. A committee of managers and a human resources representative meet monthly to decide which employees will be given the award. The group selects 5 people around some subjective criteria and the award winners are announced in this team meeting. Each winner gets a $50.00 coupon for dinner. As the names are announced everyone in the audience shifts uneasy in their seat hoping their name won’t be called. The winners feel a little embarrassed to be picked and wonder if this will affect their relationships with their peers who didn’t get selected. They also worry if they will have to work even harder next month. The meeting ends with a cake and all in all around 2 hours of productivity is lost which accounts for thousands of dollars. Still, management and human resources go away feeling good they motivated the staff! (more…)