Rewards Only Work If You Practice True Accountability

Providing more generous rewards and work conditions in order to reward and retain high performers is a growing workplace trend. What I have learned from the research conducted by my firm, RainmakerThinking, is that providing differential rewards only works when managers do the hard work of “shining a bright light of scrutiny” on every single employee. In other words, spelling out expectations and evaluating employee performance against those expectations, on an ongoing basis.

True accountability: explicit goals, measured in concrete terms, with real consequences attached to performance.

Every single employee needs to understand how and why they are earning the rewards they earn, and what they need to do in order to earn more. That means defining expectations every step of the way and tying concrete rewards directly to the fulfillment of those expectations.

That’s what I call “true accountability” – explicit goals, measured in concrete terms, with real consequences attached…