When there is no reward
19 08 2009My last post got some great comments - I encourage you to give them a read. I was a little surprised, though, that no one bit on my (theoretically) provocative question of
If you don’t reward your employees for doing something, are you telling your Gen Y employees that the value of that task was zero?
We’ve got a pretty cool group out there. I had expected to at least see the word “entitled” make an appearance. But it didn’t, which suggests that maybe my expectations of the managers and supervisors out there need a little adjusting.
That said, my view on this particular question is that you run the danger of creating the “zero value perception” when you aren’t clear in the delivery of your rewards. Certainly, there exists a perception that Generation Y needs a cookie just for showing up on time, but you will ultimately set the norms in your workplace. If your employees learn that rewards are for going the extra mile, they’ll value them. The problem comes when they think that showing up on time is going an extra mile. When you hire new employees, establish clear expectations and tie those to their pay very explicitly. You’re paying these people X dollars/hour, and you should make sure that they know that money is the reward for meeting the bare minimum standards. I might go so far as to use a written “employment contract” that makes this painfully clear.
I’ll write one of these tonight and post a .pdf of what I imagine tomorrow.
I commented on the last post as well if you didn’t get a chance to read it yet TJ.
As far as base standards go with employees these days, we have only kept lowering the expectations so why wouldn’t these new Next-Gen employees expect the same thing? Look at our generation now, people feel “entitled” to things without ever having done anything. I can’t tell you how many kids come in and complain about all the stuff they deserve…
There’s definitely something to be said for demanding high performance as a bare minimum. I think it goes back to the value you attach to a given task.
Side note here: I should stop making promises in the blog - I definitely am not going to get to that employment contract until Monday. Sorry readers
But what becomes of the standard? Look at grading in school; an A is a 93-99, now those at the upper end of the spectrum are less 1% from perfection and those on the lower end are 1% away from not doing superior work. Does that mean that you can be so close to perfection and so close to above average?
I think your example with coming in on time really explains this well, but as with my example with the grades, does being 1 minute early make you a better employee then someone who is 1 minute late?
Afterthought: Hourly pay is so hard to use as an objective means of the efficiency of your employees.
Agreed - hourly pay makes it very hard to tell because you get the same pay for an hour in which you produce nothing and an hour in which you produce hundreds of dollars of value. I think the key here is to set expectations realistically and appropriately so that they don’t get into a mindset in which they believe that they aren’t being paid to accomplish their job functions.
How do you motivate waitstaff who are paid minimum wage by the employer and get their “rewards” from the patrons? When the restaurant manager needs staff to do side work (which includes folding take-out pizza boxes, emptying ashtrays, picking up litter in the parking lot, keeping the reception area of the restaurant clean ) and the staff feel they aren’t getting paid enough by management to do more than wait on tables, the situation gets sticky in more ways than one.
The Gen Y waitstaff at this particulary restaurant don’t see a direct connection between general restaurant cleanliness and individual tips. They think such work should be done by other staff, but the owners are either unwilling or unable to pay anyone else to do this. Any suggestions?
Well as a former server/bartender myself such “pre-service” activity can be very irritating. I worked at a 5 star restaurant and we spent about 2 hours of every shift setting up for the next shift. When did we gain the fiscal reward for our efforts? We didn’t and never would see them, but our efforts then would contribute to our later reasons to be rewarded. Example:
A customer asks for ketchup and you can quickly hand them a bottle that is full or almost full, (thus providing better service to them) instead of finding one that is almost empty and then having to fill it up before you give it to the customer.
Last words- Serving is nothing compared to a commission based field, I sell cars, people can and will draw our your time for hours and then purchase nothing. So not only didn’t you get paid for your efforts you may have in fact missed out on the opportunity to get paid on others as well.
I’m a cusper of Gen X and Gen Y. I started in fast food like a lot of others. The way I see it is that a base pay from an employer should pay for the “grunt work.” These servers that complain of doing cleaning and such should be reminded of that fact. If they were to work at say McDonald’s (which I did), they would be expected to do grunt work without extra pay.
Monica:
Thanks for the question. It’s a tough one. I think your best approach is to take Nathan’s route and remind your employees that their base pay includes pay for doing some “grunt work.” (This is something that I think needs to be a part of the interview process - whether you’re asking what someone’s view on it is, or making that expectation clear and asking for a new hire’s agreement to work on those tasks.) While I typically don’t like to draw a line in the sand, there is time when waitstaff will need to hear that they can do the cleaning for their base pay, or they can not do the cleaning and lose the opportunity to get tips. (Short of that sort of ultimatum, you can make a connection between those who are willing to clean and those who are given the best - or most - hours on the schedule.)
None of this says that you shouldn’t encourage the cleaning behaviors when you do see them - but be sure that when you provide that reward or encouragement that you do it in a way that says, “Thanks for doing your job the right way” instead of “Thanks for going above and beyond.” (We don’t want them thinking that doing the bare minimum is beyond standards.
Hope this helps!
(Thanks to Craig and Nathan for their suggestions!)
the problem i have with this task and reward is every kid i have working for me needs rewards in a different way. 1 just needs the fact that you thank them. 1 needs you to go over the top so every body knows that they did a great job. i have not found a system that fits all my emplyees.
Mike:
At one of the companies where we recently interviewed young employees, the managers had a pretty clever solution to this problem. Rather than trying to figure out what kind of rewards their young employees wanted for extraordinary accomplishments, they let the employees tell them. For instance, when employees hit the day’s sales goal, there was a bell they could ring to get the public recognition that fuels some young employees, but they didn’t have to if they were cut from a more modest mold. (Either way, supervisors were sure to drop in with a supportive word.) If employees exceeded their sales goals, they earned a reward that they chose from a list of many different ones: gift cards, PTO, etc., so that, again, they were able to choose the reward that best suited them. Choice can be a really powerful way to make a reward meaningful, and it’s something that even works on very small budget.
Hope this can find a way to help in your business!
In my experience, career advancement has typically been the carrot held out for superior performance. Bonuses for specific results have been useful too.