Reward schemes for a department
Discussion
We have a box at work with the aim being people can fill in a form to nominate colleagues who have gone beyond their normal duties, gone the extra mile, helped others or just worked really hard and done a great job and achieved a great result.
The idea is that nominees will be reviewed monthly and the chosen winner announced and recognised in a department meeting and win a small gift (around £10 i think)
This is in a department of around 50 in a large company,
What has been happening though is that very few nominations have been made and there doesn't seem to be much interest.
Trying to think of new ideas and wondered if anyone had a similar scheme at work that is organised differently that works well? May be it is too frequent and a quarterly award would work better or its just that its low value prizes are not seemed as exciting enough, or that no one thinks anyone else deserves one! haha!
Will be asking around for ideas, but thought it would be useful to know what reward and recognition schemes you have found works - may be able to get a better budget for it so be interesting to know from a range of company sizes what you use - if you can let me know rough company/department size that may help too.
Thanks!
The idea is that nominees will be reviewed monthly and the chosen winner announced and recognised in a department meeting and win a small gift (around £10 i think)
This is in a department of around 50 in a large company,
What has been happening though is that very few nominations have been made and there doesn't seem to be much interest.
Trying to think of new ideas and wondered if anyone had a similar scheme at work that is organised differently that works well? May be it is too frequent and a quarterly award would work better or its just that its low value prizes are not seemed as exciting enough, or that no one thinks anyone else deserves one! haha!
Will be asking around for ideas, but thought it would be useful to know what reward and recognition schemes you have found works - may be able to get a better budget for it so be interesting to know from a range of company sizes what you use - if you can let me know rough company/department size that may help too.
Thanks!
Timja said:
What has been happening though is that very few nominations have been made and there doesn't seem to be much interest.
I think there is a cultural thing going on here - we had a similar scheme at my last place - although you could get a fair bit more than a tenner(up to a grand ISTR).What I observed was:
- The office in Bangalore loved it - everyone was nominated for the slightest little thing.
- The US offices were pretty keen - seemed to use it the way it was intended
- The UK offices shunned it - very few people got nominated unless for something really exceptional.
Bob
p.s. what about a meal out instead of pure cash?
Timja said:
We have a box at work with the aim being people can fill in a form to nominate colleagues who have gone beyond their normal duties, gone the extra mile, helped others or just worked really hard and done a great job and achieved a great result.
The idea is that nominees will be reviewed monthly and the chosen winner announced and recognised in a department meeting and win a small gift (around £10 i think)
This is in a department of around 50 in a large company,
What has been happening though is that very few nominations have been made and there doesn't seem to be much interest.
Trying to think of new ideas and wondered if anyone had a similar scheme at work that is organised differently that works well? May be it is too frequent and a quarterly award would work better or its just that its low value prizes are not seemed as exciting enough, or that no one thinks anyone else deserves one! haha!
Will be asking around for ideas, but thought it would be useful to know what reward and recognition schemes you have found works - may be able to get a better budget for it so be interesting to know from a range of company sizes what you use - if you can let me know rough company/department size that may help too.
Thanks!
We have something similar. It's funny how something that's supposed to be nothing more than a nice gesture still results in some staff moaning but hey-ho.....The idea is that nominees will be reviewed monthly and the chosen winner announced and recognised in a department meeting and win a small gift (around £10 i think)
This is in a department of around 50 in a large company,
What has been happening though is that very few nominations have been made and there doesn't seem to be much interest.
Trying to think of new ideas and wondered if anyone had a similar scheme at work that is organised differently that works well? May be it is too frequent and a quarterly award would work better or its just that its low value prizes are not seemed as exciting enough, or that no one thinks anyone else deserves one! haha!
Will be asking around for ideas, but thought it would be useful to know what reward and recognition schemes you have found works - may be able to get a better budget for it so be interesting to know from a range of company sizes what you use - if you can let me know rough company/department size that may help too.
Thanks!
IMO a tenner is insufficient, I'd suggest nearer £100. Also monthly is too often, I'd make it quarterly @£100 or annual @£500.
Who judges/chooses the winner? I'd suggest it isn't management but a mix of staff grades.
We don't have a nomination system like that, it's sorted out by management, but a while back I got £75 towards a meal out as a thank you for putting a lot of effort in on a couple of projects recently. Not a particularly lucrative bonus scheme but a nice pat on the back that doesn't cost the company much, made me feel appreciated, and my Mrs got something out of it as well after I'd been putting in a lot of hours recently.
We have something similar within a big multinational, sliding scale starting at $50 for going above and beyond to $100s/$1000s if you do something that save the company a million a year or something. Also a reward for getting something patented.
I fixed a major bug last year that had been alluding a lot of other staff members, did my boss nominate me - no. I did get a $50 one from a Canadian colleague for essentially answering a technical email a few hours after he'd sent it though. To be honest the $50 one isn't much of an incentive as after tax it amounts to about £20 but as I said to my boss suppose it does buy you a takeaway and a bottle of wine one evening.
I think these things can only motivate if you have a manager who is on the case and nominates you for the rewards.
I fixed a major bug last year that had been alluding a lot of other staff members, did my boss nominate me - no. I did get a $50 one from a Canadian colleague for essentially answering a technical email a few hours after he'd sent it though. To be honest the $50 one isn't much of an incentive as after tax it amounts to about £20 but as I said to my boss suppose it does buy you a takeaway and a bottle of wine one evening.
I think these things can only motivate if you have a manager who is on the case and nominates you for the rewards.
We have postcards with pictures of party hats and the world "Thanks!!!" On them. We had a big unveiling meeting for this "scheme" and were reminded that these weren't to be handed out freely, it had to be for something really special.
I use them as threats when my team are working to hard. Calm down or I'll send you a postcard!
I use them as threats when my team are working to hard. Calm down or I'll send you a postcard!
meehaja said:
We have postcards with pictures of party hats and the world "Thanks!!!" On them. We had a big unveiling meeting for this "scheme" and were reminded that these weren't to be handed out freely, it had to be for something really special.
I use them as threats when my team are working to hard. Calm down or I'll send you a postcard!
Please tell me you're joking? I use them as threats when my team are working to hard. Calm down or I'll send you a postcard!
The company I work for has shopping vouchers that people can be nominated for if they go about the call of duty or sort out a complete fiasco. Also a larger company wide recognised award every month I think for a person/team who have improved processes or done something larger that is worth recognition. Works well here.
In my experience, these nomination schemes tend to be won by people who make a big fuss about how difficult something was as if they've gone above and beyond the call of duty. Meanwhile, the folk who actually do the work quietly and without bragging don't get rewarded, so it descends into a farce.
The idea of a team reward thing is much better, so periodic freebies work. Beer Friday, a pizza now and again or something similar works far better in bringing a team together than individual rewards for laughable deeds.
We also have an ecard scheme, where you can receive an ecard from someone for similar. This is even worse, because the message it sends is that you're worth rewarding but not with something of monetary value...
The idea of a team reward thing is much better, so periodic freebies work. Beer Friday, a pizza now and again or something similar works far better in bringing a team together than individual rewards for laughable deeds.
We also have an ecard scheme, where you can receive an ecard from someone for similar. This is even worse, because the message it sends is that you're worth rewarding but not with something of monetary value...
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Seen lots of schemes; most don't work as intended.Turn it in to routine and it becomes devalued and expected.
My experience points towards having good leaders in place, with a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, great employment conditions and recognition by leaders when appropriate like as described above.
Cash is often more divisive than not, regardless of value.
Something similar was set up at work to try and overcome a few months of "good performance, but bad customer feedback" - we hit all our KPIs from an operational point of view, but had a few issues with customer feedback that needed addressing.
some bright spark decided that we would have rewards for staff who received exceptional good feedback from customers in a month etc, and it was £50 or so for the top, and £25, and £10 for 2nd and 3rd etc in shopping vouchers.
But all this resulted in, again, was the same staff members getting it for a few months, because they essentially forced the customers they were interacting with the fill in a feedback form with a few words of thanks, and then dropped them in the box, meaning people moaned they never won, and so the scheme was stopped, and people then moaned they weren't getting their "bonus" vouchers.
The ratio of good feedback to bad feedback was skewed by this, but the ratio of poor feedback vs customers remained the same, which was what we were trying to reduce in the first place.
I left that part of the business before my suggestion of "Actually employ managers who are willing to performance manage the staff" got to the top of the pile..
some bright spark decided that we would have rewards for staff who received exceptional good feedback from customers in a month etc, and it was £50 or so for the top, and £25, and £10 for 2nd and 3rd etc in shopping vouchers.
But all this resulted in, again, was the same staff members getting it for a few months, because they essentially forced the customers they were interacting with the fill in a feedback form with a few words of thanks, and then dropped them in the box, meaning people moaned they never won, and so the scheme was stopped, and people then moaned they weren't getting their "bonus" vouchers.
The ratio of good feedback to bad feedback was skewed by this, but the ratio of poor feedback vs customers remained the same, which was what we were trying to reduce in the first place.
I left that part of the business before my suggestion of "Actually employ managers who are willing to performance manage the staff" got to the top of the pile..
aquarianone said:
- gadgetgy things - smartwatch / phone / tablet
I worked for a large multinational years ago that had a 5/10/15/etc years reward scheme. They actually had a catalog you could chose your item from. Dunno if how much better the longer term stuff was, but the only thing I could find what wasn't complete tat was a wall clock. Mind you 10 years later the clock's still on my lounge wall and the company no longer exists 
Thanks for the responses. Some useful ideas and views in there which I will put forward and several points which tie up with my thoughts. Particularly that often the quiet people who just get on with things are forgotten and having less frequently for a more meaningful perceived value/ actual night out when wife/family who have also missed out on time could benefit.
The c£10-20 value at the moment is made up of mainly corporate branded merchandise!
The c£10-20 value at the moment is made up of mainly corporate branded merchandise!
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