Project Team Rewards
Results
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rewards seems to be more appropriate. Another option might be to give group rewards to
subgroups that consist of people who contributed approximately the same to the project.
If member fluctuation is high, agreeing incentives also seems difficult. If group
incentives were agreed (which is not recommendable according to the previous paragraph)
it would be difficult to distribute the incentive between the members fairly. If individual
incentives were agreed, many assessments would need to be done which would cost time
and resources. Furthermore, it seems likely that at least some members would feel treated
unfairly if many different individual agreements exist. Therefore, recognition seems more
appropriate if member fluctuation is high. Recognition usually has no high-cash value and
feelings of unfairness are less likely (Arthur 2001).
5.3.10. Impact of Project Duration
Incentives need to be around 10 or 15% of the base salary to be motivating (Lawler in
Armstrong 2000). Usually this percentage is related to the employees’ yearly salary. In a
short-term project, of maybe 3 months, a 15% incentive of the yearly salary would be
quite high and expensive in relative terms. A 15% incentive based on a 3-months
salary
might be too low in absolute terms to motivate an employee. This becomes even more
significant if employees are joining the project only for a few days or weeks
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. Hence, the
longer a project, the more the focus should be on incentives to motivate team members.
The shorter a project, the more the focus should be on recognition.
The project’s end represents a possibility to assess the team members and provide
rewards. It seems preferable to provide incentives at the project’s end, because the
motivational effect of incentives quickly vanishes as soon as the incentive is provided
(Miller 1991). That means project members will be motivated to get the incentive during
the project but they will not be motivated after the project because they got the incentive.
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Example: If an employee with a yearly salary of £36.000 joins a project team for two weeks, a 12.5%
incentive equals £173. If this was enough to motivate this employee is debatable. In contrast, if this
employee would join the team for one year, the reward would be £4500. Although the reward is eventually
the same in relative terms, the later one would be more motivating (Armstrong 2000).
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