Project Team Rewards
Literature Review
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divide team rewards. Aguanno (2003:23) quotes Gandz who introduced the “$POVM”
rule which is related to equity theories and the perceived fairness of reward distribution:
“[T]hose who got ONE dollar less than someone else are likely to be ‘pissed off’
by the fact that they got a dollar less, and those who got one dollar more are likely
to be annoyed by the fact that they ONLY got one dollar more! It’s how that that
MARGINAL dollar is perceived that makes the difference. So […] forget trying to
make small dollar differences in rewards”
3.4.8. Reward Time
Gibson & Cohen (2003:123) emphasise that rewards should be given in a “timely
fashion”. Orr (2004) clarifies this statement by saying rewards should be given directly
after a goal was reached. In normal line work, goals are agreed and assessed usually once
a year. Accordingly, incentives are given once a year (Torrington et al. 2002). In contrast,
recognition might be given more frequently to employees (Garg & Rastogi 2006). This
reminds employees of the overall goal (and incentive) and brings positive change into
employees’ daily routine.
In general, reward literature does not focus very much on the question when and how
often to reward. Few statements and no research evidence could be found on the exact
impact of rewarding time and frequency on motivation. Nevertheless, there are differences
and some types of employees are likely to get rewards more often. For instance, sales staff
often gets
rewards once a month (Cacioppe 1999). The reasons
for this are their job
characteristics and the available measurement tools. Since sales numbers can easily be
measured, sales staff usually gets rewards once a month (Arthur 2001). Other tasks might
be more difficult to measure and hence need more complex assessment methods such as
360° appraisals. In that case, superiors, subordinates, peers and the employee him/herself
evaluate the performance. This takes considerably more time than an automatic
surveillance system. Hence, rewards that require a time consuming assessment should be
provided less frequently (e.g. once a year) than rewards that require a non-time consuming
assessments (e.g. once a month). Hence, the less time consuming an assessment, the more
often rewards may be provided.
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