Rewarding teamwork: a new level of employee motivation

At annual gala celebrations, certificates, bouquets of flowers and gratuities are distributed for the achievements of the best employees. The teams come away empty-handed here in most cases. But corporate success is rarely achieved through the commitment of a single person. In the long run, this system of rewarding the individual can lead to a decrease in commitment within the team. It's just not worth it for the individual to support the group. That's why you should think about strategies for team motivation at an early stage.

The need to reward teamwork has long been recognized

As early as 1997, the scientists Hyatt and Ruddy determined how important team motivation strategies are. In their paper "An Examination of the relationship between Work Group Characteristics and Performance: Once more into the breech" the authors describe the need for recognition of teamwork. They conclude that without team commendation, individual commitment to teamwork is undermined. In their work, Hyatt and Ruddy propose reward systems that, for example, provide teams with additional resources. This should improve team performance. Conceivable here would be more team time or the development of qualifications through joint attendance of training events.

Dangers lurk in the wrong implementation of team motivation strategies

However, if you mean too well and only highlight the teams, this will have the opposite effect. Hyatt and Ruddy explicitly warn against using team motivation strategies to undermine individual rewards. This loss would be perceived as punishment by employees. Therefore, make individual achievements in the team visible wherever possible and award them separately. This not only spurs you on, but also helps you uncover the free riders who want to bask in team success without contributing anything of their own.

Strategies for team motivation from practice

With the U21 team award, EDEKA holds an award ceremony among all trainees. Participants compete in teams. 2012 took 1.450 trainees in 192 teams participate. Teams can win prizes in various categories. Previously, trainees had to work on the topic "Are you still eating, or are you already enjoying?" Plan actions on their own.

Five As for your top teams

Successful reward systems are based on the five As: recognition, credit, assignment, award and analysis. Strengthen team spirit through mutual recognition. An innovative approach to recognition is used by EMC Mortgage Corporation in Irving, Texas. In absentia, "messages to my fantastic teammate" are regularly written here on colored paper and hung on his office wall. In this way, the individual employee receives immediate and visible recognition.

Always credit the whole team for successes to build a culture of recognition in your company. Therefore, award a job directly to several employees who join together to form a team and target their individual strengths to solve the problem. Tasks can be completed faster and more effectively – success and the corresponding reward will provide new motivation! Google has long used pair programming projects, where two programmers work together on the same computer.

The data available in companies today makes it easier to reward teams

Create additional incentives by highlighting the best teams with awards. To do this, try to analyze exactly who made what contribution. Helpful to this analysis task is certainly the increased amount of data in companies. With its help, it is possible to determine exactly who was responsible for what and with what result the task was completed. To keep your best employees motivated, highlight their successes separately from the team.

Companies that reward their teams in the same way they reward their top employees will quickly find that the effort in this area pays off. Good teams are not only characterized by good employees, but also complement each other perfectly in their work. Rewarding teams creates incentives for employees to form teams more often.