by Derek Irvine

Recognize This! — Differentiating recognition and rewards for top performers is critical while still allowing for all to participate in the opportunity to be recognized for work well done.

I intentionally stirred the compensation and recognition pot in my last post on Compensation Cafe. With a title like “An Argument for Unfair Pay,” I’m sure you can imagine the post received several insightful and detailed comments.

So, in my post yesterday on the Cafe, I took advantage of the very smart readers and fellow bloggers to showcase some of those comments and learnings. Click over for the details, but here’s a taste of thoughts around the appropriate balance between paying and recognizing people fairly while allowing for the differentiation necessary for the top performers:

•  Jacque Vilet: “Let them have access to high level management to discuss progress and to get help in removing any organizational barriers that are keeping them from solving the problem.”

•  Jim Brennan: “The Pareto Principle still applies.“

•  E. K. Torkornoo: “Keep them away from terrible managers, narcissistic leaders and distracting politics (to the extent possible); assign them to teams with others they respect, listen carefully and respond to them.

•  Ted Weinberger: “I refer you to an article in Personnel Psychology 2012 on “The Best and the Rest: Revisting the Norm of Normality of Individual Differences” by O’Boyle and Aguinis for an academic discussion of this subject.”

•  Tony Bermann-Porter: “The notion that you can provide meaningful performance differentiation with a 2-3% budget is fanciful.”

How do you differentiate for top performers?