Rewarding employees for their contributions is one of the most effective methods to encourage better employee performance and increase productivity. Letting employees know that they have done a good job will be a great way to boost morale and motivate them to achieve higher business goals. However, transparency and fairness in employee rewards program often poses a challenge for HR leaders.
Most employees acknowledge the difference in reward sharing and see it as something usual. Yet, when unfair and opaque reward program is perceived, it could lead to internal conflicts within an organisation. When the problem is not addressed properly, it will cause serious roadblocks in your efforts to improve employee retention.
Suspicion toward imbalanced rewarding practices followed by organisations, does exist among employees and this could prove to be a nightmare for your talent retention strategy. When leaders fail to execute transparent rewarding programs, some employees might sense resentment towards the other due to some mix-ups.
News travels fast, and widespread misunderstanding about rewarding practices and unfairness observed will definitely divide unified teams. This issue could further cost you employee’s trust and loyalty, resulting in employee turnover to make them choose quitting jobs voluntarily.
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To prevent unwanted commotion caused by suspicion towards one another, here are some insightful tips to create transparent reward programs:
Define the benchmark
Why do you give bonus for one employee and not the others? How can you make the process fair and transparent? What were the achievements by this one chosen talent for rewards and not performed by their co-workers?
Defining the benchmark is crucial towards creating a transparent reward program. By formulating certain standards on how employees should finish their tasks, both leaders and employees will get better assessment of what kind of achievements should be rewarded and what should not.
Do not play favourites
Say for instance, you assign two of your employees on exactly same task. One of them happens to be your junior at the university, while the other is a new hire. When the deadline is reached, they come to you with exactly the same results. Is it okay to give them different compensation? The answer is definitely a ‘No’.
Regardless of how much you might like them (both personally and professionally), under such situations based on their performance, they should receive exactly same compensation.
Playing favourites at work is not only disadvantageous for your employees, but this trait will decrease your credibility as well.
Pay rewards on-the-spot
Do not take too long if you want to reward the employees. Be it completion of a successful project, closing annual report, or achieving sales target, you have to make sure that the rewards are paid as soon as possible after the accomplishment.
Never make employees wait for the rewards they deserve as it will irritate them and leave bad impression about you.
Encourage equal opportunities
It is true that one employee might perform better than the other. Given such scenarios, some employers tend to delegate highly-rewarding projects to them more than their co-workers. However, this is not the right way to manage the employees.
As a leader, you should be able to encourage equal opportunities. By all means, you need to distribute equal share of work between employees. For example, if you need additional role for an ambitious project, advertise it openly so everyone gains access to prove their abilities.
Reward your employees for their achievements and contribution. This does not mean you have to give them as much credit as possible. However, it is important that the management makes them feel valued, appreciated and compensated for their hard-work.
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