December 6, 2022 0 Comment

Should You Reward Underperformers for One-Off Achievements?

Watch the Video

Should You Reward Underperformers for One Off Achievements?

This is one dilemma that many Line Managers and HR Partners face – whether to reward underperformers for significant achievements, as part of the employee rewards and recognition program. In most cases, the Rewards and Recognition Policies might not state anything explicitly, leaving it to the better judgment of the concerned managers.

Why shouldn’t underperformers be ignored for Employee Rewards and Recognition?


Should you Reward Underperformers for One-Off Achievements?

1. Underperformance might be Temporary

An important point to note here is that consistent underperformers might rarely be around in the system since the performance assessment process would take care of that.

Hence, underperformance might be a temporary phase or it could be just relative. And more than other employees, these employees need more motivation.


2. Critical to be Fair and Unbiased

Managers often tend to use all available resources to motivate their employees. This might result in managers tending to ignore the underperformers and focusing on the top performers when it comes to rewards and recognition.

Hence a truly deserving employee might miss out on a spot award for a significant achievement, due to his or her overall performance history.


3. Might motivate underperformers to do better

Not rewarding underperformers for their past record is not only is this unfair, but counterproductive as well. The manager might be missing out on an important opportunity to motivate an underperformer and putting him or her back on track.

Whereas a top performer, who might not truly deserve the award, might actually get an award because of their track record; this might not cause any significant change in their motivation levels.

Bottom-line

Hence it is our recommendation that awards especially those in the category of spot awards should be given based on the immediate achievements and not the past track record of the employees.

Awards should be treated as awards – it absolutely okay to reward underperformers for their achievements if they meet the criteria!

To stay updated on the latest HiFives blogs follow us on Twitter (@MyHiFives)

HiFives (https://www.hifives.in) is an employee rewards, recognition and engagement SaaS platform that enables organizations to digitize, automate and transform their employee experience. The platform enables supervisors and co-workers to nominate, recognize and reward employees using a points-based system. Budget management, jury-based evaluation and multi-level approval workflows are built into the platform. HiFives has social features such as a wall of fame and gamification features such as leaderboards, e-certificates and digital badges. It also has a global redemption system with country-specific e-gift card options. HiFives integrates with all leading HRMS systems, Office 365, Google Workspace, MS Teams, Slack and other popular tools used at the workplace. HiFives is used by many large enterprises, small businesses and startups across 25+ countries in the world, in many industries including manufacturing, retail, technology, financial services and media.