Rewards and Recognition

 

The rewards and recognition programme maximizes employee engagement and job performance thus helping achieve the corporate goals. According to Armstrong (2010), reward management is not just about financial rewards, pay and employee benefits but it is equally concerned with non-financial rewards such as recognition, learning and development opportunities and increased job responsibilities (Armstrong, 2010).  Nyakundi et al. (2012), state the aim of employee recognition is to allow individuals to know and understand that their work is valued and appreciated, provides a sense of ownership and belongingness, improves morale, enhances loyalty and increases employee retention rate in the organization (Nyakundi et al., 2012). Therefore, it is imperative that employees are recognized and rewarded based on their job performance.  

 

Employee motivation

According to Amoatemaa and Kyeremeh (2016), the most effective ways to motivate employees to achieve the desired goals of the organization involve creating an environment with strong, respectful and supportive relationships between the organization and employees and a focus on genuine expressions of appreciation for specific employee achievements, service milestones and a day-to-day acknowledgement of performance excellence (Amoatemaa and Kyeremeh, 2016). In this regard, the line manager plays a key role in ensuring the right atmosphere prevails at the workplace. Further, through effective communication with subordinates, the line manager could understand the employees and thus apply relevant motivational means. Employee recognition has been identified as a highly effective motivational instrument, that can have a significant positive impact on employee job satisfaction and performance as well as overall organizational performance (Zani et al., 2011). When motivating employees through recognition, extrinsic and intrinsic rewards are to be considered. Preference for extrinsic and intrinsic rewards varies across cultures, which in turn affects their ability to motivate employees (Schneider and Barsoux, 1997). In order to keep employees from different cultural backgrounds satisfied and motivated to perform, managers must attempt to understand the implications of culture on employees’ expectations in regard to work-related issues, including rewards (Linehan and O’Donovan, 2011). For example, the hotel I work for employs sixteen nationalities from different continents and the employees from Africa and Asia prefer extrinsic rewards of monetary bonuses as a motivational factor.

 

Employee retention

According to Imran et al. (2014), satisfied employees have a positive attitude towards the organization and their jobs thereby increasing the quality and quantity of employee performance (Imran et al., 2014). This implies that when employees are satisfied with the organization retention comes naturally. Brun and Dugas (2008), in their scientific literature have identified four approaches to employee recognition expressed in the form of personal recognition, recognition of work practices, recognition of job dedication and recognition of results. They added that these four recognition practices recognize employees as full-fledged individuals as well as workers capable of being committed to their jobs by investing time and energy to perform duties competently and deliver concrete results (Brun and Dugas, 2008). The organizational recognition culture also motivates employees to be competent. And through competency, the employee stands a chance for career growth. For example, an employee who gains knowledge, skills and willingness to commit through a learning and development programme wants to perform above and beyond to achieve recognition in the scope of career progress.

In line with the argument of Silverman (2004), Management should ensure that whichever approach is used for the selection and awarding of employees is credible, transparent and robust. Further, if employees feel in any way that the assessment method has not been fair, the program may be undermined thereby demotivating employees rather than motivating them (Silverman, 2004). This will undermine the employees’ psychological contracts with the organization. Hence, having an effective employee recognition programme would not only help boost job performance but will retain the employees too. For example, an employee becomes more loyal towards the organization when it is evident that the job performance recognition process is fair and transparent.

 

References

Amoatemaa, A.S., and Kyeremeh, D.D. (2016). Making Employee Recognition a Tool for Achieving Improved Performance: Implication for Ghanaian Universities, Journal of Education and Practice, Vol.7, No.34

Armstrong, M., (2010). Armstrong's Handbook of Reward Management Practice: Improving Performance Through Reward, 3rd Edition, Kogan Page Ltd., UK

 

Brun, J. P., & Dugas, N. (2008). An analysis of employee recognition: perspectives on human resources practices. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp.716‐730.

Imran, A., Ahmad, S., Nisar, Q. A. and Ahmad, U. (2014). Exploring Relationship among Rewards, Recognition and Employees’ Job Satisfaction: A Descriptive Study on Libraries in Pakistan. Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, 21 (9): 1533-1540, 2014

Linehan, M., and O’Donovan, D. (2011). REWARDS SYSTEMS IN IRISH HOTELS: PERCEPTIONS AND PREFERENCES OF MULTICULTURAL EMPLOYEES, Human Resource Management Track

Nyakundi, W. K., Karanja, K., Charles, M., and Bisobori, W.N. (2012). Enhancing the role of employee recognition towards improving performance: A survey of Keyatta National hospital Kenya. International Journal of Arts and Commerce, 1 (7).

Schneider S.C., Barsoux, J-L. (1997). Managing Across Cultures, Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall.

Silverman, M., (2004). Non-Financial Recognition: The Most Effective of Rewards?, Institute for Employment Studies, UK

Zani, R., Rahim, N.A., Junos, S., Samonol, S., Ahmad, S. S., and Merican, F.M. (2011). Comparing the impact of financial and non-financial rewards towards organizational motivation. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 3(4), 328-334.

Comments

  1. Rayan SachinDecember 4, 2022 at 8:59 AM

    Agreed Afzal.. An important topic..Furthermore, Flynn (1998) argued that rewards and recognition programs keep high spirits among employees, boosts up their morale and create a linkage between performance and motivation of the employees. The basic purpose of recognition and reward program is to define a system to pay and communicate it to the employees so that they can link their reward to their performance which ultimately leads to employee’s job satisfaction.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Afzal FarookDecember 6, 2022 at 11:36 AM

      Thank you for your comment Rayan. According to Lloyd (2008), Rewards and recognition do not exist in a vacuum, and their impact hinges on the workplace context and culture. If the environment is harsh or cold, all of your efforts to reward and recognize employees will fall short (Lloyd, 2008). Line manager relationships with subordinates and the organizational culture are equally important factors and their impact as a psychological reward goes a long way with employees.

      Delete
  2. Romeda WijewardeneDecember 5, 2022 at 3:05 PM

    Agreed on the content Afzal. Further, as benefits of employee motivation, it Increases the goodwill (Rothberg, 2005), organizations can increase productivity (Bradford, 2001), an organization can reduce employee costs (Carr & Tang, 2005), when the employees get awards for well-done work and guarantees of the work, it will have an automatic impact on performance (Yamamoto, 2013).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Afzal FarookDecember 6, 2022 at 11:06 AM

      Thank you for your comment Romeda. According to Rose (2011), recognition programmes typically reward behaviours that are linked to the desired organizational culture. This helps enhance employees’ motivation and engagement and in return serves the objectives of the organization in the long term.

      Delete
  3. Tharaka De VisserDecember 7, 2022 at 5:31 PM

    Agreed on the above content Afzal, the tactics, regulations, and procedures required to ensure that employees are valued for their contributions to the achievement of organizational, departmental, and team goals are known as reward management. It involves the creation, implementation, and upkeep of incentive systems that are meant to operate fairly, equally, and consistently while also meeting the needs of the company and its stakeholders. These systems will include procedures for determining the value of jobs through job evaluation and market pricing, grade and pay structure design and management, performance management processes, programs for rewarding and recognizing people based on their individual performance or contribution, and/or team or organizational performance, and the provision of employee benefits. (Armstrong, 2010)

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    Replies
    1. Afzal FarookDecember 8, 2022 at 10:59 PM

      Thank you for your comment Tharaka. According to CIPD (2022), organisations should establish a reward strategy that clearly articulates the aims of the various reward elements and how they are integrated. Therefore, educating employees on the available benefits and the conditions for the benefits would help with the purpose of the reward and employee motivation.

      Delete
  4. MHM FarhanDecember 8, 2022 at 10:29 PM

    Agreed & furthermore, Motivation is an important factor that encourages people to give their best effort and contributes to the achievement of large business goals (Jain, et al., 2019) Positive inspiration will increase workers' output, whereas negative inspiration will decrease their output (Jain, et al., 2019) Motivation is an important factor in the work force for executives (Jain, et al., 2019)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Afzal FarookDecember 9, 2022 at 10:50 PM

      Thank you for your comment Farhan. According to Armstrong and Murlis (2007), as stakeholders, employees need to be given a voice in the formulation of the reward strategy. Thereby, employees would have a positive approach to the appreciation of rewards.

      Delete
  5. Hemantraj Joel RanushanDecember 9, 2022 at 9:00 AM

    study indicate that employees in Kenyatta University are less motivated by financial
    and recognition rewards and the variables contribute to a small extent in improving their job performance. This means that if more focus is placed in reward and recognition by Kenyatta University management, there could be a resultant positive impact on university staff and hence result in higher levels of job performance (Ndungu,2017)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Afzal FarookDecember 9, 2022 at 11:43 PM

      Thank you for your comment Hemantraj. According to Lloyd (2008), In many respects, promotion is the ultimate reward at work because it fulfils the successful employees’ needs for recognition, achievement, responsibility, and personal growth. Thus, the employee is rewarded and a vacant job position is filled by the talent within the organization. This serves as a motivational factor for the rest of the employees to perform well in their jobs in order to get promoted. Thus, the organization achieves benefits in many ways.

      Delete

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