Designing A Reward System That Works Ruby Jester HSM 220 Barry Schultz August 08, 2010 Designing A Reward System That Works In any type of business reward systems offer employees the incentive to more effectively and efficiently perform. Whether the rewards are financial, material, recognition based, or just beneficial they are important in helping to motivate employees in performing better and going above and beyond the minimum requirements. There are nine major factors that motivate employees to perform better.
These nine factors are: “Respect for me as a person; good pay; chance to turn out quality work; chance for promotion; opportunity to do interesting work; feeling my job is important; being told my boss when I do a good job; opportunity for self-development and improvement; and large amount of freedom on the job. When creating a reward system these factors should be considered. We will focus on implementing these factors in creating a rewards system for human service organizations.
Human service workers have a great need to be rewarded for the efforts, effectiveness, and efficiency because they deal with other people’s problems and issues everyday without allowing their personal feelings or personal issues to get in the way of their performance. Human service workers deserve recognition for the work they provide to others while maintaining the integrity, moral values, and high ethical standards in every situation.
Human service workers ensure that regardless of the situation they meet the basic needs of their clients and go above and beyond to ensure the safety and well-being of all parties involved in the situation. Most human service organizations are non-profit therefore the money that comes into the organization is usually for specific purposes leaving little options for human service workers to receive monetary rewards. Although monetary rewards may not be an option there are many other ways that human service organizations can reward their employees for their hard work and dedication to the organization and the clients they serve.
Some of the rewards that non-profit human service organizations can offer their employees are paid days off, good health insurance, paid holidays, advancement opportunities, matching 401k’s, company picnics, raises, and gift certificates. According to Ghosh and Kumaraswamy (2002), “Rewards are based usually on job skills base and performance” (Expert Systems in Human Resource Management, Reward System, para1). “The functions of the reward system are threefold: First, the rewards must attract idea people to the company and the reservations and retain them.
Because various firms have different attraction and retention problems, their reward systems must vary. Second, the rewards provide motivation for the extra effort needed to innovate. After 19 failures, for example, something has to motivate the idea generator to make the 20th attempt. And, finally, successful performance deserves a reward. These rewards are primarily for idea generators. However, a reward-measurement system for sponsors is equally important. Reward systems mix several types of internal motivators, such as the opportunity to pursue one’s ideas, promotions, recognition, systems, and special compensation.
First, people can be attracted and motivated intrinsically by simply giving them the opportunity and autonomy to pursue their own ideas” (Galbriath, 1982). Employees of human service organizations often times feel as if their work is rewarding enough by seeing the changes they make in people’s lives. Although this is the case, they too deserve a reward system that gives benefits to all employees. Making sure to recognize the achievements of every employee is better than making employees feel as if they must compete for them.
This can cause some employees to feel like their achievements are not as good as other employees. Because human service workers serve a wide range of clients with a huge array of different needs it is important to reward human service workers for their efforts and their dedication. One way to do this is by using the gift card reward system. Human Service organizations could partner with corporations to offer these to their employees during certain times of the year and the companies who donate the gift cards could use them as tax deductions at the end of the year.
This gives recognition to the employees, benefits the organization, and provides the company supplying them with business and with tax break benefits. Today’s human service worker is part of an organization to help people better themselves and become self sufficient. Flexibility and individualism are important functions to have in any human service organization. Rewards for employees in human service fields need to focus on treating employees as individuals. Every person has different strengths and weaknesses and the reward system should be set-up to provide an array of different areas in which employees are rewarded.
One example could be that employees receive testing to see what their strengths and weaknesses are and then paired with people who have different strengths to be able to develop their skills and then rewarded for achieving improved results. In conclusion, a rewards system that focuses more on the accomplishments of each individual and gives positive feedback on the areas that need to be improved provides employees with wanting to work more effectively and efficiently.
Employees that understand that they are an important part of the organization and that the organization recognizes their talents with be more dedicated to that organization than if the organization only offered rewards based on merit. Because of the type of work that human service workers perform and the fact that they deal with and find solutions to their client’s needs on a daily basis says a lot about the integrity, loyalty, and compassion that human service workers have for people.
They deserve to be rewarded for their hard work and dedication to improving the lives of the people they serve. References Galbraith, J. R. (1982). Designing the Innovating Organization. Organizational Dynamics, 10(3), 4-25. Retrieved from http://search. ebscohost. com/login. aspx? direct=true;db=bth;AN=5141961;site=ehost-live Ghosh, S. , ; Kumaraswamy, M. (2002). Expert Systems in Human Resource Management. Journal of Management Research, 2(1), 53-60. Retrieved from http://search. ebscohost. com/login. aspx? direct=true;db=bth;AN=6966327;site=ehost-live
