Offering Rewards

and Recognition™

Participant Guide
TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
Offering Rewards and Recognition™ ................................................................................................... 2

Purpose/Process/Payoff ....................................................................................................................... 3

Reward and Recognition: Defining Terms ............................................................................................. 4

REWARDS AND THE THREE NEEDS

Three Psychological Needs.................................................................................................................. 6
Video: Supporting the Three Needs (Office) .......................................................................................... 7

Rewards: How Could This Be True? ...................................................................................................... 8

Making Rewards Rewarding ................................................................................................................. 9

UNDERSTANDING THEKEY ACTIONS

The Key Actions: An Introduction ........................................................................................................ 11

Key Actions for Offering Recognition ................................................................................................... 12

Video: Key Actions for Offering Recognition (Office) ............................................................................ 14

Video: Attributes of Effective Recognition (Office) ................................................................................ 15

USING THE KEY ACTIONS

Recognizing a Team .......................................................................................................................... 17

Team Recognition and Reward Ideas ................................................................................................. 18

APPENDIX
Self-Determination Theory and Employee Motivation: An Overview ...................................................... 20

The Virtual Workforce: Using the Key Actions ..................................................................................... 23

Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................... 25

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page i

Introduction

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 1

OFFERING REWARDS AND RECOGNITION™

For most adults, work meets many needs—income, of course, as well as friendship and
achievement. Too often, though, employees feel bored or alienated at work. The result
can be illness, absenteeism, and turnover—at huge cost to the organization.

Many leaders assume that employees, having secured food and shelter, become
passive, in need of external motivation. So they offer incentives—wage increases,
bonuses, promotions—or threaten punishment for failure to perform.

But 40 years of scientific research confirms that rewards and threats actually undermine
sustained motivation and performance.

This research has also identified three universal needs that everyone brings to the
workplace: competence, relatedness, and autonomy. When leaders reward and
recognize employee efforts to satisfy these needs, they tap the power of internal
motivation.

Offering Rewards and Recognition™ helps participants to use rewards effectively and
to apply a simple process for offering recognition. The payoff of these skills is improved
employee engagement, performance, and results.

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PURPOSE/PROCESS/PAYOFF

PURPOSE
The purpose of Offering Rewards and Recognition™ is to learn to offer rewards and
recognition that support competence, strengthen relationships, and encourage internal
motivation in others.

PROCESS
During Offering Rewards and Recognition™, you will complete a variety of individual
and group activities that explore the following topics:

• Research highlights on rewards and motivation

• Effective use of rewards
• Recognizing individuals and teams
• Applying what you've learned

PAYOFF
At the end of Offering Rewards and Recognition™, you will be able to:

• Explain the difference between reward and recognition.

• Offer rewards that foster employee motivation.
• Offer spoken and written recognition that supports employee motivation.
• Sustain motivation by helping employees identify their own contributions.
• Recognize team performance to encourage collaborative effort.

What other benefits do you hope to gain?

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REWARD AND RECOGNITION: DEFINING TERMS

REWARD
Something of tangible value used to motivate employees to work toward a specified
result.

RECOGNITION
Spoken or written acknowledgment of an individual or team effort or result.

NOTES:

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Rewards and the Three Needs

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 5

THREE PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS

Forty years of research (collectively called “Self-Determination Theory” or SDT) confirms

that people share three fundamental psychological needs: competence, relatedness, and
autonomy.

• Competence: Feeling valued as knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced

• Relatedness: Collaborating with colleagues and co-workers
• Autonomy: Exercising self-regulation, within guidelines, to achieve business goals

When offering rewards and recognition, the role of the leader is to create the conditions that
allow the employee to satisfy these needs. Doing so optimizes the employee's internal
motivation, encourages risk taking, and positively affects the desire to perform at full
potential.

COMPETENCE
• Acknowledge the employee’s talents and contributions.
• Communicate your confidence that the employee has the ability to make similar future
contributions.

RELATEDNESS
• Use rewards and recognition to solidify your working relationships with employees.
• Help employees identify the positive impact their contributions have on others.
• Encourage further collaboration with colleagues and co-workers.

AUTONOMY
• Highlight the unique or creative attributes of employee contributions.
• Encourage employees to exercise creative freedom within clear structures and
guidelines.

SUMMARY
The goal of the leader is to foster internal motivation. Your skills in offering rewards and
recognition can help you reach that goal.

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VIDEO: SUPPORTING THE THREE NEEDS (OFFICE)

Setting: Alpha Gear, an online marketing company

Michelle Eric
Web Development Supervisor Technician
(reports to Michelle)

How does Michelle support your assigned need?

Competence

Relatedness

Autonomy

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REWARDS: HOW COULD THIS BE TRUE?

Research Finding 1: Rewards can undermine sustained, long-term motivation and

performance.

Research Finding 2: Offering rewards for something employees already like to do can
undermine motivation and performance.

Research Finding 3: Rewards can make it more difficult for employees to be creative and
solve complex problems.

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 8

MAKING REWARDS REWARDING

Tangible rewards can be useful when they support employees' internal motivation. To
make rewards as effective as possible, it's important to:

• Give rewards to acknowledge a positive outcome, not solely to control future

behavior.
• Avoid giving awards for individual or team competition (where the “losers” may be one
percent less effective than the “winner”).
• Give rewards in appreciation after the employee's action, rather than offering an award
to motivate action (i.e., “if/then”).
• Distribute rewards unexpectedly, as a surprise to the employee.
• Offer rewards equitably (i.e., one employee is not singled out among others who
contribute equally).
• Offer rewards seen by employees as appropriate for what recipients have done.
• Make rewards accessible to all who perform at the same level or make the same
contribution.

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Understanding the Key Actions

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 10

THE KEY ACTIONS: AN INTRODUCTION

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KEY ACTIONS FOR OFFERING RECOGNITION

1. DESCRIBE THE BEHAVIOR OR RESULT.

Why
An accurate account of the employee's actions or positive outcome establishes the
purpose and tone of the conversation.

How
• Be specific and concise. “The opening of your presentation caught the client's
attention.”

• Recognize progress as well as end points. “Your response to the client was
empathetic yet persistent. I saw how you listened to his concerns, even under
pressure.”

• Pick up on cues from employees. “You've come up with creative ways to

address the client's concerns.”

2. EXPRESS YOUR APPRECIATION.

Why
Your personal appreciation supports the employee's need for relatedness. People care
more about your genuine appreciation than “on behalf of the organization.”

How
• Use language that shows your personal gratitude. “Thanks for all you are doing
for our patients.”
• Avoid controlling expressions such as “Keep those good ideas coming.” “I'm
not sure I could have kept my composure. It was impressive.”

3. HIGHLIGHT THE IMPACT ON OTHERS.

Why
Highlighting the specific ways people have benefited by an employee's actions
strongly supports the needs for relatedness and competence.

How
• Focus on the positive results others experienced. “It made our whole team look
good—not to mention putting the customer's mind at ease.”
• Give specific ways people have benefited. “And that's one less headache for the
other teams in the field.”

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 12

KEY ACTIONS FOR OFFERING RECOGNITION (CONT.)

4. ENCOURAGE CONVERSATION.
Why
Asking employees for further details about their actions and results supports internal
motivation and helps employees applaud their own success.

When
You can encourage conversation at various times:

• In Key Action 1, if you lack the detail to be specific

• In Key Action 3, if you’re not sure who is positively affected
• When an employee is especially pleased with something
• When you want to help an employee reflect on what went well, so as to repeat it
in the future

How
• Ask the employee for further details about methods, challenges, progress, and
so on. “What went into making this process so successful?”
• Use “open probes” to encourage a free exchange with the employee. “What
more can you tell me about the initial steps?”
• Use “closed probes” to confirm specific details. “How many hours did that save
off of the entire process?”

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 13

VIDEO: KEY ACTIONS FOR OFFERING RECOGNITION (OFFICE)

Setting: Alpha Gear, an online marketing company

John Lisa
Web Development Supervisor Content Editor
(reports to John)

What does John say, ask, or do for your assigned key action?

1. Describe the behavior or result.

2. Express your appreciation.

3. Highlight the impact on others.

4. Encourage conversation.

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 14

VIDEO: ATTRIBUTES OF EFFECTIVE RECOGNITION (OFFICE)

Setting: Alpha Gear, an online marketing company

Paul Kate
Web Development Supervisor Web Developer
(reports to Paul)

The attributes of effective recognition:

• Genuine: Expressing sincere gratitude makes recognition effective.

• Short: Thirty seconds is plenty of time to get your point across.
• Specific: Specifics support competence. Vague statements sound trite.
• Timely: Waiting shows that recognition wasn't a priority.
• Meaningful: Recognizing people for things they see as insignificant misses the mark.
• Inclusive: Over time, no one is left out or singled out.
• Frequent: When all the above criteria are met, offer recognition generously.

NOTES:

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Using the Key Actions

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RECOGNIZING A TEAM

Reminders:

• Minimize team competitions that result in winners and losers.

• Be careful about singling out individuals when your intent is to recognize the whole
team.
• Focus your recognition on ways team members connect with and support each
other as well as results.
• Recognize progress, not just overall results.

NOTES:

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 17

TEAM RECOGNITION AND REWARD IDEAS

Use the space below to jot notes on recognition and reward ideas to share with your
team.

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 18

Appendix

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 19

SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY AND EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION:
AN OVERVIEW

WORKPLACE PRODUCTIVITY THEORIES

Maximizing employee productivity has long been a major concern for organizational
leaders. In the early 1900s, Frederick Taylor introduced the theory of Scientific
Management: workers are primarily motivated by pay, and the main job of leaders is to
set and enforce work standards. His theory, though flawed in its oversimplification of
motivational dynamics, set the standard for rigorous workplace study.

B.F. Skinner made an important advancement in the middle of the 20th century with his
concept of behaviorism, in which rewards motivate good behavior and punishment
discourages bad behavior. Although recognizing what would become the well-known
“Hierarchy of Needs” put forth by Abraham Maslow in the 1960s, Skinner and his
adherents maintained that motivation originates exclusively outside of the employee,
thus necessitating tight control of employee behavior from leaders.

Maslow, Frederick Herzberg, and others shifted the focus by showing that once the
lower orders of needs have been met (physiological needs like food, shelter, and
safety), all people want to realize their potential—a process Maslow called “self-
actualization.” Fulfilling these higher orders of needs relies upon the action of intrinsic
motivators—those arising from within the employees themselves.

SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY
Over the last 40 years, Edward Deci, Richard Ryan, and many others have shed new
light on intrinsic motivation. Their work has led to Self-Determination Theory (SDT).

Their research found that employees are intrinsically motivated to perform work-related
tasks efficiently and effectively. Thus, the task of leaders is to create conditions in the
work environment that are conducive to optimal employee motivation.

The key to SDT is recognizing that there are two different types of motivation:

• Autonomous motivation: Doing a job because it is either intrinsically interesting

or is consistent with the employee’s deep and abiding personal values.

• Controlled motivation: Doing a job because the employee feels pressured by

external or internal forces to do it.

Studies have shown that the type of motivation that employees have is more important
than the amount of motivation when predicting how they will perform and feel in the
workplace.

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 20

SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY AND EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION:
AN OVERVIEW (CONT.)

One very controversial and important early finding of SDT research was that when
people are offered contingent monetary rewards for doing activities they already find
interesting, they lose intrinsic motivation for those activities. By 1999, more than 120
studies confirmed that indeed there is strong evidence for the paradoxical negative
effect of contingent extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation.

ARE REWARDS ALWAYS HARMFUL?

No, extrinsic rewards do not always undermine intrinsic motivation and are, at times,
appropriate. However, great care should be given so they are not used to motivate or
control behavior, thus achieving an unintentional negative effect. This occurs because
extrinsic rewards have a strong tendency to make employees dependent on the
rewards. And since research has shown that autonomous motivation is more likely than
controlled motivation to promote flexible thinking, high-quality learning, and problem
solving, employees are more effective and they experience greater satisfaction at work
when extrinsic rewards are minimized in favor of fostering employees’ intrinsic
motivation.

THE THREE BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS

Examination of the research shows that when three basic and universal psychological
needs are supported, employee motivation and productivity rises. When these needs
are thwarted, healthy functioning plummets. This has broad implications for the
workplace. These three needs are:

• Competence: People’s experience of being effective and mastering their social and
physical environment.

• Relatedness: People’s experience of close, meaningful, and mutually supportive

connections with important others.

• Autonomy: People’s sense that their behavior is volitional, performed willingly,

reflectively self-endorsed, and experienced as chosen.

Considerable empirical research indicates that employees whose leaders provide

support for competence, relatedness, and autonomy experience higher levels of
wellbeing, trust in the organization, engagement and satisfaction at work, and
performance in the workplace.

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 21

SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY AND EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION:
AN OVERVIEW (CONT.)

INTERNALIZING MOTIVATION
Providing support for basic psychological need satisfaction also facilitates the process
of internalization toward greater autonomous motivation, which is associated with high-
quality behavioral persistence and performance—as well as physical, psychological,
and social wellness—in the workplace and other areas of life. However, employees
perform work-related tasks for a variety of reasons. Some complete their daily tasks
quite willingly and with experiences of interest, excitement, enjoyment, and satisfaction,
while others feel pressured or forced to do those tasks.

How employees approach given tasks depends on many factors. Importantly, leaders
cannot force their employees to internalize their motivation. They can, however,
contribute to their employees’ workplace success by providing an environment and
facilitating certain behaviors that allow employees to satisfy their needs for
competence, relatedness, and autonomy, thus promoting optimal motivation and
functioning at work.

For more information, visit the Self-Determination Theory website:

www.selfdeterminationtheory.org.

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 22

THE VIRTUAL WORKFORCE: USING THE KEY ACTIONS

While face-to-face meetings provide eye contact, body language, and other non- verbal
cues to help leaders assess employee needs and motivation, in-person meetings are
not always possible. The Key Actions for Offering Recognition are effective in any real-
time situation, even if used at a distance. Consider these additional tips as you work with
employees who may be part of a dispersed work team.

1. DESCRIBE THE BEHAVIOR OR RESULT.

Why:
• An accurate account of the employee's actions or positive outcome establishes the
purpose and tone of the conversation.

How:
• Be specific and concise. “The opening of your presentation caught the client's
attention.”
• Recognize progress as well as end points. “Your response to the client was
empathetic yet persistent. I saw how you listened to his concerns, even under
pressure.”
• Pick up on cues from employees. “You've come up with creative ways to address
the client's concerns.”

Virtual Tips:
• Give your undivided attention to the conversation.
• Avoid multitasking.

2. EXPRESS YOUR APPRECIATION.

Why:
Your personal appreciation supports the employee’s need for relatedness. People care
more about your genuine appreciation than “on behalf of the organization.”

How:
• Use language that shows your personal gratitude. “Thanks for all you are doing for
our patients.”
• Avoid controlling expressions such as, “Keep those good ideas coming.” “I’m not
sure I could have kept my composure. It was impressive.”

Virtual Tips:
• Use a tone of voice that is pleasant and conveys interest.
• Show you value feelings as well as opinions.

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 23

THE VIRTUAL WORKFORCE: USING THE KEY ACTIONS (CONT.)

3. HIGHLIGHT THE IMPACT ON OTHERS.

Why:
Highlighting the specific ways people have benefited by an employee's actions strongly
supports the needs for relatedness and competence.

How:
• Focus on the positive results others experienced. “It made our whole team look
good—not to mention putting the customer's mind at ease.”
• Give specific ways people have benefited. “And that's one less headache for the
other teams in the field.”

Virtual Tips:
• Give the person time for the action's impact on others to register.
• Include details that help the person “paint a picture.”

4. ENCOURAGE CONVERSATION.
Why:
Asking employees for further details about their actions and results supports internal
motivation and helps employees applaud their own success.

When:
You can encourage conversation at various times:

• In Key Action 1, if you lack the detail to be specific

• In Key Action 3, if you’re not sure who is positively affected
• When an employee is especially pleased with something
• When you want to help an employee reflect on what went well, so as to repeat it in
the future

How:
• Ask the employee for further details about methods, challenges, progress, and so
on. “What went into making this process so successful?”
• Use “open probes” to encourage a free exchange with the employee. “What more
can you tell me about the initial steps?”
• Use “closed probes” to confirm specific details. “How many hours did that save off
of the entire process?”

Virtual Tips:
• Listen for clues that give a sense of how the individual works—and under what
conditions.
• Listen for facts and feelings within the details the person shares.

Offering Rewards and Recognition Page 24

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