Employee Rewards & Motivation

September 30, 2010

Interview with Paul Marciano, author of the book Carrots and Sticks Don't Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles of RESPECT

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Mike Carruthers:
We may need to rethink the traditional ways we motivate and reward employees.

Paul Marciano:
As an example we talk about the importance of teamwork and yet in these kinds of employee of the month programs there’s usually only 1 winner.
 

Paul Marciano, author of the book Carrots and Sticks Don't Work, says employee reward programs typically only reward those who are already doing the best work. But for those who you want to motivate to do better…

They do nothing to engage the folks that may want to put forth that extra effort – they pursue these carrots, they don’t win and they become incredibly frustrated and actually produce less for you.

So what works better to engage employees? Paul says it’s all about showing them respect.

By making sure to acknowledge their contributions, not an employee of the month way but simply a handshake, thank you note. Because we know that doing that kind of social praise increases the likelihood of people engaging in behavior again. Failure to do that actually makes it less likely to do it again.

And employee morale and commitment would be so much better…

If organizations made one simple rule; people aren’t allowed to talk about each other behind each other’s back in a negative way. Gossiping is very disrespectful and it leads to so much damage in terms of relationships and so much lost productivity. 

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here