Social Media as a Reward & Recognition Tool

As social media takes an increasingly predominant place in our personal and work lives, it also raises questions about potential connections to employee motivation, performance and rewards.  I chronicled this trend in a recent post, noting the challenges employers face in encouraging productive use of social networks by their employees.

Today, Paul Hebert of Incentive Intelligence introduces an intriguing new twist on the topic.  Taking the psychological principle of social proof as a stepping-off point, Paul uses a study done to determine the most effective way to influence hotel guests to reuse their towels in order to illustrate the power of social influence in impacting behavior.

From Paul's post:

Social networks allow information to surface and let's people see what others LIKE THEM are doing - making it more likely they will follow that lead.  If a salesperson can see that other salespeople like them are making sales and finding leads - they are more likely to work a bit harder.  If your employees see others working outside their job descriptions to help the company - they will want to do the same.

Using social networks isn't just posting the top performers at the end of the program - that's still necessary.  Leveraging social networks in your program is about having a continuous stream of information that shows people are hitting targets, trying new ideas, helping other departments - reinforcing those behaviors and communicating that these behaviors are common and are standard operating procedures.

The question is whether employers, many of whom are still wrestling with the risks and control issues surrounding employee social media use, will recognize the enormous opportunity they have to leverage these tools to make a positive difference in employee - and organizational - performance.

What about you?  How can you use the concept of social influence to augment your reward programs and practices?

Employer Social Networking Conundrum: Prohibit? Control? Incent?

There is an interesting tension being played out today involving employers and social networking, with implications for employee performance and rewards.  Organizations are on a fast-moving ride, trying to come to grips with the whole Web 2.0 phenomenon and what it means for them.

Just a little over a year ago, the impetus seemed to be one of control (with the presumed undertone that social networking activities were a waste of time and drawing employee attention from their primary work responsibilities).  This is evidenced by a February 2008 survey by the American Management Association (cited here in a recent BLR Daily Advisor) which showed that 65% of employers were using Internet blocking software and, of these, 50% were blocking social networking sites and 18% were blocking access to blogs.

More recent Deloitte research suggests that employers are becomingmore aware of the fact that social networking presents opportunities as well as risks, and that managing this balance is a strategic activity.  From the Deloitte study:

• 27% of executives surveyed agree "Our executive team regularly discusses how we can best leverage social networks to our advantage while mitigating risks."

• 17% of executive surveyed agree "My company has a program dedicated to monitoring and mitigating risks related to the use of social networks."

• 22% of executives surveyed agree "My company has formal policies that dictate how employees can use social networking tools."

• 22% of executives surveyed agree "Our senior leadership team addresses issues related to company-wide social networking."

• And 80% of executives surveyed agree that social networking should be a board room issue.

It is good that employers are grasping this.  While employee networking activities undeniably raise risks, a recent study conducted by IBM in connection with MIT (via the HR Capitalist) points out that networking activity is positively related with performance, productivity ... and revenues.  Among other insights fromthe IBM study, which examined the impact of network activity via email and instant messaging, is the finding that strong ties to powerful individuals ("authorities or experts within one's network") resulted in additional individual incremental revenue of $588 a month.

Which suggests pretty clearly that employers not only need to move beyond simple control initiatives, but must consider how to encourage productive use of social networks.  Perhaps consider whether this is a skill or behavior that should be reflected in their performance management process.  And perhaps even ponder whether there should be a connection to employee rewards.

Your thoughts?

Image: Creative Commons Photo "Web" by kurtxio

Stepping Up & Intrinsic Rewards

Recently I posted about the question of whether, when and how to best recognize and reward employees who are asked to step up and take on more in the wake of hiring freezes and layoffs.

New research is out to remind us that employees themselves see such opportunities as one of the positive effects of working through a recession. 

Click over to my latest post at the Compensation Cafe to learn more.

Agility. The New Reward Watchword

There's a lot we don't know about what life will be like as we continue through the recession, or when we eventually arrive on its other side.  There's one thing we do know, though: that the business landscape will be different.  Maybe profoundly so.

Assuming this to be true, we can also conclude that success in the future (near term as well as over the longer haul) will require organizations to be quick to respond to the threats and opportunities that show up, unanticipated, in their path.  This, in turn, will demand a workforce with the flexibility to adapt to environmental demands.

Reward programs have a very important role to play in maintaining a workforce that is sufficiently fleet of foot.  This is why I believe that agility should be the new watchword for reward design.

Agile rewards are those which carefully balance fixed reward elements with their more nimble variable counterparts.  The agile reward package recognizes the importance of providing competitive base pay in exchange for a particular set of skills and qualifications (and a competent or better level of performance), but seeks to use non-fixed rewards (cash and non-cash) to accomplish most other objectives.  These other objectives might include everything from recognizing temporary project-based outcomes to addressing the increasingly frequent need for people to step out of or up above their "normal" roles in response to changing circumstances.

A picture being worth many words, I use my reward portfolio diagram to illustrate this challenge:

In the past (and still today in some sectors), it was common and acceptable to reward many, if not all, of the performance elements listed on the left side via base salary.  Agility demands that we provide a competitive base, but then - as much as possible - use other right side components to drive and recognize the results demanded of our workforce.

So .... got agility?

Image: Creative Commons Photo "Rainbow!" by Evoo73

Rewarding Those Who Step Up in Tough Times

During these times of upheaval, with hiring frozen and in the wake of layoffs, many employees are being asked (that's a nice way of putting it) to take on more.

The question becomes: Who and how to reward for this?

My answer:  Thoughtfully.  And carefully.

Click over to my post today at the Compensation Cafe for more.

Adversity Demands a Kick-Start: Try Small Goals & Recognition

In their Fast Company article Set Smaller Goals: Get Bigger Results, Dan Heath and Chip Heath, authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, make the case for smaller goals as a way to kick start performance during times of adversity.

They push for what they call "whisker goals" (targets that may be just a hairsbreadth away from the status quo) rather than stretch goals as the way to move people who are overwhelmed in the moment.

From the article:

Whisker goals are particularly well suited to our current moment. Adversity taps our strength. When you've just laid off someone, it feels like too much to bear to offer constructive criticism to another employee. When you've given up your bonus and had your budget cut, it feels like too much to consider going back for that master's degree. In hard times, we retrench. We maintain. We certainly don't stretch.

But retrenchment is the wrong response to adversity. Adversity calls for change, and change doesn't arrive via a miracle: It arrives via a kick start. During World War II, the government needed to orchestrate a massive increase in industrial production at the exact same time as its most talented industrial minds were being called away to fight. Government officials trained new people to look for tiny steps forward, not big leaps. A training manual advised workers to "look for hundreds of small things you can improve. Don't try to plan a whole new department layout -- or go after a big new installation of new equipment. There isn't time for these major items. Look for improvements on existing jobs with your present equipment."

Change can start with small measures, and it can be rewarded with small prizes. Maurer cites a Toyota employee-suggestion program. The carmaker receives 1.5 million employee suggestions every year, and it holds an annual awards ceremony to celebrate the single best idea. The lucky employee gets a fountain pen. (Lehman Brothers handed out million-dollar bonuses. How'd that work out?)

I think there's real wisdom to considering whisker goals as a way to break through the inertia that many organizations are experiencing and get people moving forward.  And I think that whisker goals combined with nominal value recognition awards (cash or non-cash) could be a winning strategy - particularly as a complement to bigger goals and annual (or longer) incentive opportunities.

Keep'em focused on the forward and the future, but help them with a nudge off home base.

Recognition - Making it Real ... and Appreciated!

In composing my previous post about the new research on recognition published by WorldatWork, I was reminded of something that a former colleague used to say when discussing recognition programs.

It was:

Never give a plaque to an employee who has no wall!

The point?  Make sure that you recognize employees in a manner which they value and appreciate.  For example, not everyone likes to be called out in public; employees on the shy or reserved side might find this to be an uncomfortable experience.  In fact, lack of care for how employees prefer to be recognized can torpedo an otherwise positive and well-directed recognition effort.

Case in point:  An organization I once worked for had an "employee of the quarter" award, based on peer nomination.  Every quarter, right before the quarter-end all-staff meeting, an email would be circulated asking for votes for the employee who most deserved recognition that quarter.  The employee who received the most peer votes would be called to the podium during the all-staff and presented with a nominal award (gift certificate, if I recall correctly) and made to stand there while the office head gave a silly memorable speech about their accomplishments over the past quarter.

Now I'm certain that this whole effort started out just fine, but by the time I had joined the firm, the peer nomination process had been tainted with practical jokes and even minor acts of revenge.  And if you had a hint that you might be among the top runners for employee of the quarter, well you made it your priority to be out-of-town at an unavoidable client meeting that day.  Just to avoid the embarrassment.

And yes, folks, this was at an HR consulting firm.  Big shame on us.

The lesson?  Recognition can be a powerful and effective tool, particularly given its ability to accomplish a lot on a relatively small budget.  But recognition plans can have extraordinarily limited shelf lives.  You have to keep 'em fresh and keep 'em real, and you have to watch carefully for signs that they are fraying around the edges.

Forewarned is forearmed!

New Research - and Good News - on the State of Recognition

Recognition continues to be a popular and effective tool in the overall reward portfolio, according to newly released research from WorldatWork. 

The WorldatWork glossary defines recognition programs (clearly and helpfully, I think) in this way:

A policy of acknowledging employee contributions after the fact, possibly without predetermined goals or performance levels that the employee is expected to achieve. Examples include giving employees clocks or other gifts on milestone anniversaries, granting an extra personal day for perfect attendance or paying a one-time cash bonus for making a cost-saving suggestion.

Note that recognition programs, when defined this way, differ from incentive plans in that they tend to be reactive, rather than proactive, in nature.  Rather than laying out pre-determined performance measures and goals, and then communicating specific awards that will be paid if those goals are reached, recognition plans are more about catching someone in the act of doing something great.  As such, they can make a unique and powerful contribution to your overall reward toolkit, addressing organizational objectives that are hard to reach and/or reinforce through other types of pay programs.

Some key findings from the WorldatWork research, which features the responses of 554 participating members:

• The popularity of recognition programs continues, with 89% of respondents reporting recognition programs in place and 53% considering implementing new or additional recognition programs in the next 12 months.
• The top goals described for recognition programs are -
  • Creating a positive work environment (77%)
  • Motivating high performance (71%)
  • Creating a culture of recognition (69%)
  • Recognizing years of service (69%)
• And it seems as though most participants feel that their recognition programs are getting the job done, with 71% indicating that the program is accomplishing its objectives.

For more information on the research, contact WorldatWork (note that copies of the research report are available to members).

On the Fear of "Overpraising" Employees

Thank you to Liz Ryan, author of the Career Insight column for BusinessWeek online, for hitting an important nail right on the head with Is Praising Employees Counterproductive?

I run into the puzzling phenomenon she describes, fear of overpraising employees, on a far-too-regular basis.  Managers and supervisors consciously hold back praise and verbal recognition, or dole it out in a careful and sparing fashion, for fear - I guess - that it will undermine employee work ethic, or worse.  In her article, Ryan addresses some of the most common fears (yes, fears) associated with praising employees, and explains why they are unfounded, including:

• If you praise an employee too often, s/he'll get spoiled.  You should mix praise with constructive criticism. (Wouldn't it be motivating to have every single compliment of your work paired with a dose constructive criticism?)
• If you praise an employee a lot, he or she will slack off.  (Ever heard of the concept of positive reinforcement?)
• If you praise an employee, s/he'll expect more money.  (Let's face it.  Everyone wants and expects more money than they are making these days - so a frank and factual discussion of how an employee brings value to the table, and what it takes to augment that value, is not something you can avoid by simply holding back praise.)

I have personally found that almost nothing motivates me like a healthy hit of specific, well-deserved praise - from a client, a boss, or anyone whose opinion of my work matters to me.  My conversations with employees about performance, rewards and recognition would suggest to me that most people feel the same way. 

Have we lost our appreciation of the value and power of a well-aimed compliment?

Reward Lessons from the Fast Food Trenches

Jerry Newman, author of Compensation and My Secret Life on the McJob: Lessons from Behind the Counter Guaranteed to Supersize Any Management Style, conducted his study of rewards in the fast food industry by working undercover for seven fast food establishments in three states during a 14-month period. In a two part article for WorldatWork's workspan magazine, he shares some of the lessons gleaned from this experience, not the least of which is how to reward workers when pay dollars simply aren't available. As Newman puts it: "In a world where 25 cents is a big pay increase, obviously money can't be the central motivator" and fast food managers don't have the luxury of substituting financial incentives for good leadership.  A few of his insights are excerpted below:

Informal Recognition

My best managers all used role models for recognition.  Atith (not his real name) was a Cambodian with halting English.  But he was very meticulous in his mopping.  All new crew members learned about mopping from Atith.  And the manager made great ceremony of announcing how good Atith was, and that we would be learning from the best. A manager at Krystal used the same tool, telling me to watch Marge put burgers on the grill and flip them over.  "She is the best in the store," he said loudly and proudly announced.  It costs nothing and reaps huge jumps in self-esteem to reinforce good work in this way.

Social

There is growing evidence that people who get up in the morning and look forward to work do so because they like the people they work with.  No great surprise, right?  But good leaders don't leave this to chance.  My best managers spent an hour interviewing me.  My worst spent five minutes or less.  In one job I had no interview.  I was hired sight unseen.  What did these good managers spend time on?  They wanted to know what mattered to me and how I approached what did and did not matter.  When I asked my best managers if my interview was typical, universally they said yes.  Find people who fit.  Creat opportunities for fun and growth in friendships.  Social networks are the glue that ties workers to their jobs in a positive way.

Hours of Work

Fast food allocates hours of work as a reward.  Do a better job and you get more hours, if desired.  On a broader scale, some of the best managers I've seen understand that sometimes hours of work need to be flexible.  Even in environments where flexibility isn't the norm, good managers make exceptions for good employees.  Favoritism, you cary.  Yup, say the good managers.  Work hard and you too can become a favorite.