A lot of times managers tell me that they want to have more rewards in their repertoire to drive employee performance, but they operate in a resource constrained environment. They don't have enough resources to reward people. So let me tell you what we've learned.
There are five non-financial rewards that people say they want and these five non-financial rewards happen to be the five things that managers have the most control over usually. The number one non-financial reward people care about is having more control over their own schedule. A lot of people will work more hours if they can have some control over when they actually have to work. The number two non-financial reward people care about is relationships: who do they need to work with? I don't want to work with Mr. Blue; I want to work with Ms. Red. I don't want to work with this boss; I want to work with that boss. I don't want to work with this vendor; I want to work with that vendor. I don't want to work with this customer; I want to work with that customer. The number three non-financial reward people care about is tasks. I don't want to do the grunt work; I want to do the really choice task. One general in the United States Army said to me, "I always say not every soldier needs to take a turn cleaning the latrine." Well that's right; you should give the choice tasks to the best people as rewards because it's something that people really care about. The number four non-financial reward is training; marketable skills. I want to learn marketable skills to make me more valuable somewhere else. And the number five non-financial reward people say they care about is location. I don't want to work in Chicago; I want to work in San Francisco. I don't want to work on this side of the building; I want to work on that side of the building. OK, if I have to work in this little cubicle, I really want to bring my dog to work.
Those are the five non-financial rewards people care about. They also happen to be the five things that managers have the most control over. The question is, are you using those non-financial rewards you have control over to drive performance every step of the way?
