Put in the effort - Rewarding change
Reward is a necessary tool in incentivising and sustaining change, even if the benefits of a new way of working in the long run are seen to outweigh any cost or increase in workload required to make the change.
Even for workers who embrace change and seek out ways to innovate in the workplace, the absence or improper utilisation of reward mechanisms can lead them to become disengaged or even hostile to change rolled out by their company.
Below are a list and summary of some of the worst practices I have encountered in the reward and recognition of change, and my thoughts on how organisations should view their change budget not just in financial terms, but in terms of employee patience and goodwill to engage with change mechanisms.
Uncomfortable Reward Mechanisms
This is an interesting phenomenon where those involved in change seem to understand the request they make of staff in introducing change, but deny the expectation that they must trade something of value to incentivise staff to carry out and sustain interest and engagement in the proposed change. The dissonance, in the actions of the change agents in understanding the resource required to enable the change vs the action of denying the appropriate reward mechanisms to sustain the change, results in a feeling of an elephant in the room and uncomfortable silences when this topic is addressed.
My experience of this comes from involvement in business change where a central department was posed to introduce new mechanisms and ways of working into the company. A significant amount of work was being suggested with arguably significant benefit for the business on paper, but when the topic of staff reward and recognition was broached it was clear that the perspective of management was that the staff were already paid a wage and the changes should be absorbed into their day to day work. This presents an out-of-touch perception that because staff are paid a salary they are able to absorb new roles and responsibilities in perpetuity.
The ends justify the means
This perception is often followed by an argument that the end benefit to staff should be seen as a reward in itself and that staff will engage with a change as far as the realisation of these benefits, even if the change were to take several months or even years to implement and realise the benefits from.
The perception of change literature is that more negative attitudes to change are associated with higher workload, which discredits any perception that staff will remain patient with proposed change until the end benefits become apparent. Staff require intermediate incentivisation to support small behaviour changes that support a cultural shift which enables the change to be implemented and sustained in the organisation.
To ignore this requirement is to demonstrate an apathy for the requirement of culture change in an organisation, and the knowledge of how people are motivated and gain fulfilment. While the end benefits of change are important to communicate, what is more important is the demonstration of what support and incentivisation will facilitate this change made through the effort and commitment of staff that have heavy workloads and customers to deliver to.
The disconnect
A common issue seen in organisations with a centralised reward system is that HR departments and senior management have not done the work to attempt to link their reward systems to what their staff value. These one-size-fits-all systems are seen as easy to facilitate, but result in employee disengagement as employees may hold different currencies than those who have brainstormed a potential reward in isolation. This often results in confusion within an organisation when intrinsically motivated employees won’t engage with a new company change because the company is offering expensive watches.
The watch example is based on my discussions with a senior manager from a large global company that reported significant volatility in engagement with their knowledge management systems, with rewards being allocated by senior managers who were often choosing what rewards motivated them rather than employees who might value a company shout-out, a cash bonus, or even a Steam gift card more than a watch.
The unrewarded burdens of change
Some change may result in the addition of new roles and responsibilities to sustain the change. Examples of this may be when a company brings in a new system or way of working that requires superusers or staff champions. I’ve often encountered change leads and senior management who will readily volunteer staff or ask staff to take on what is effectively a permanent commitment to an additional role or responsibility without tangible compensation or reward.
These situations can easily result in the complete collapse of change and a significantly reduced desire from employees to volunteer or be involved in any future change a company suggests, which is effectively a consequence of such a short term approach by a company that commits many forms of worst practice at once and offers no possible long term benefit that outweighs the cost to the company, its employees, and the future potential for change.
If a change requires additional roles and responsibilities a company must cost these into the change and not attempt to circumnavigate realistic cost by pretending it can be absorbed by staff time. The consequences of this are easily buried in an organisation, but compound over time. A significant increase in hiring costs due to workers leaving may not be linked to staff taking on additional roles and responsibilities they felt they were unrewarded for, which allows for little accountability over the consequences of this practice, but its impacts are felt throughout an organisation.
Not business as usual?
Often the simplest approach is best when it comes to change. The simplest approach to supporting and sustaining change through reward is to utilise existing organisational reward systems, which are often linked to a company’s values. However, I have often experienced apprehension by change leaders in aggressively or even minimally utilising a company’s existing reward systems in their change programmes.
Staff recognise the existing reward systems of an organisation and likely associate this form of reward with good practice in the workplace. Some companies have reward systems such as ‘acting-up allowances’ in the case of employees taking up new roles and responsibilities, rewards for company values, and even small tokens, but some change leaders may shy away from using company reward systems through the desire to keep the cost of their change as low as possible, or believing that change activity is not appropriate and business rewards are for normal day to day work and that use of an existing reward system for their change project would be an abuse of the system and should require its own reward budget.
The goal of change is for a change to become business as usual. When it comes to reward and recognition the simplest and most effective way to support the transition of what staff may perceive as extra work, or a cost to themselves, is to fully utilise business as usual reward systems, as long as these systems links to what employees value.
Conclusions
A great many articles discuss the difficulty of change and how over 70% of organisational change fails. However, fewer articles argue that change is not hard, but that we make it hard, which I consider to be more realistic.
Reward and recognition is a key element of any form of training and behaviour change, and to companies it is no different. To ignore or not resource reward and recognition is to hope results will manifest without putting in the effort, and to further bankrupt your ability to make future change.
Change is an exchange of the currencies of a company and its staff. For staff to engage in and incorporate change into their work to the point where benefits are realised. These currencies incorporate the patience, goodwill, and emotional energy of employees to work with the company to accept and integrate change so these changes will benefit the end customer. In return the company must spend its own currencies suited to what employees value, above interpreting an employee’s salary as their infinite bargaining chip.
