Leadership Tips - Add This to Your Reward System

Until I worked in Information Technology (and some of you reading this were not even born when I started), was a fact: no one in the IT team gets the recognition that the boy (or girl) who is the better problem solver. When something goes wrong, really wrong, this is the person who comes to the rescue. They are worth their weight in gold, with their extensive knowledge and exceptional ability to solve problems.

Because everyone knows who the firefighter is, and knows at least two or three good stories of how they saved the day, the chief of the fire department has very little trouble during the annual salary reviews and bonuses that make the case for reward. The defect is evident that, in order to obtain greater rewards, it is necessary to have great problems to solve. Where is the incentive to prevent fires in the first place?

Sometimes the question is asked

If Susan is so good at solving problems, why not stop them from occurring in the first place? But the argument is short-lived. Nobody is going to fail to reward if Susan is the best firefighter around. We do not want to risk that we might lose it.

Perhaps Susan prevents many problems as she fixes. On the other hand, maybe he actually allowed to occur when a problem could be prevented, because of the recognition. To be honest, most people would not go that far. But could it happen? Absolutely!

IT leaders and HR professionals have struggled with this challenge for years. Often the firefighter is out and enjoy the attention, while the people who produce high quality products are free from defects in low key and under appreciated. How do you change the reward system to recognize high-quality deliverables, at least as we recognize those who solve the problems?

It 'easy to suggest that the bosses pay more attention to the contributions of each individual and to be more selective in handing out awards. But the reality in most pay systems business is that you are making the case for your share of the pot, and you're going to have a much easier time fighting for money for all recognize as heroes. Transforming a low profile, high-quality performer in a hero is not always easy.

Here's an alternative.

Create a prize focused exclusively on the prevention of significant problems. If you're following CMM or a model of similar quality have a handle on defects discovered and fixed before production. And you should be monitoring of individual performance in order to know who offers high quality products - the specific requirements, test cases, software code, etc.

Disconnect the prize from the annual review process. Try to make a quarterly basis if you can.

Fund well. This may be your biggest challenge, because you have to do it in the budget. What you want to do is fund the award to about 25-35% of a strong annual bonus. In this way you can make the point that if a person were to win all the prize, they would at the end of a year the money as much as the fireman, maybe even more.

Make it a big deal. Although it is possible to finance, and especially if it is not possible, the public acknowledgment and recognition are equally important as the money. Giving the award a name, and not let it become routine.

Let the prize is something people do for their applications, and let the people you nominate. Having a review team of competent people who go beyond the nominations and recommend a winner. Keep the final decision so that they are always challenging the review team to apply the correct principles for their recommendations.

Your fire department will always have their glory. Put some 'struggle to find and reward those who have never left the fire started .......