Feed Back

Come appraisal time each year, organizations of all shapes and sizes struggle to reconcile rewards / recognition / merit pay with past performance / future potential.

Even those who believe in frequent (continuous) feedback to employees, often find that the recipients are resistant to accept said feedback, since it can affect their performance pay at the end of the year.

Wouldn’t it better to separate feedback and monetary rewards completely?

Wouldn’t it be more effective if feedback was shared (frequently) with those who needed it the most, with the explicit understanding that merit-based monetary rewards will be paid out objectively, and against quantified goals?

—

Incentives Matter

If we reward the best department/team/branch/region, those units have no incentive to share best practices among them, or learn from each other’s challenges.

If we reward individual accomplishments, team members have no incentive to collaborate (or help newbies).

If we reward vintage and tenure, we do it at the cost of idea meritocracy and embracing change.

If we reward successes but punish failures, there is no incentive for the individual (or team) to experiment, iterate and fail – the bedrock of innovation.

If we reward mediocrity or applaud every one equally (regardless of differential effort/output), there is no (external) incentive for high performers to keep raising the bar.

At work as in Life, incentives matter more than we think.

—

Work Force

Simon Sinek points out, “100% of employees, customers and investors are people. If you don’t understand people, you don’t understand business.”

I completely agree, and will add: 100% of distribution agents, channel partners, suppliers and key stakeholders are also people.

Human Resources (#HR) is viewed by many as a fluffy specialization, and often perceived as a soft-skill more suited to women than men.

However, understanding of people is a critical skill with significant implications in all dimensions of work – whether you are an Entrepreneur, Manager or CxO.

It follows, therefore, that managing Human Resources is every one’s job.