"Employee of the Month"

Apparently when I used to work at Yates's as a student there was supposed to be a staff incentive scheme. It turned out that the previous manager had pocketed the budget.

Anyway a new manager came in and insisted on back dating it all at once and making an Employee Of The Year which I won. They paid for me to go to Ibiza for a week so I can't complain.
 
Steampunk said:
You try and rev up the workforce, keep them motivated and focussed - as long as it doesn't cost extra wages. How many stories have we had on these forums where companies suddenly find money for pay rises when someone hands in their notice? But until then, the company can't afford to pay you more.

I had an interesting chat with a guy that ran a teambuilding company and he said "you don't get asked back again if you recommend that companies pay their people more money to keep them happy". No, you pay to take them away and run around playing games in Wales so everyone gets "connected" and somehow that makes everyone a happy employee when they get back to the office/shop/factory.

Employee of the month is just a simple and cheap way of motivating staff - often in the absence of sorting out endemic issues (pay, management, advancement, etc). There's anecdotal evidence in this thread of how it is perceived, abused, or misused.
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I'm aware of its intended purpose but I can't say I've seen anyone being more focused or working harder than they normally do to win it, everyone goes about their role as normal usually and someone is selected based on whatever reasons a manager can make up at 10 to 5 on a Friday when they remember it's due unless someone has actually went above and beyond their responsibilities that month.
 
Funny this thread has come up because I was recently reading an article about financial motivation with regards to sports teams.

Whilst a good financial package is important to foster good will and motivation in the workforce it can also have pitfalls. In situations where disparity of pay occurs this can have a more negative effect on moral.

If you have been working your socks off for months whilst getting no recognition as the office brown nose collects another bonus it seriously demotivates staff and will lead to people leaving and poor performance overall.

You see it in professional sports where a new player arrives on a much bigger contract than existing players and this can cause friction in the dressing room.

Employee Of The Month can suffer form this. Especially if it involves something like total sales. It can be abused by managers putting their favourites in positions where they can make easy sales whilst another employee will be assigned somewhere else and is bound to struggle.
 
Ayahuasca said:
I'm aware of its intended purpose but I can't say I've seen anyone being more focused or working harder than they normally do to win it, everyone goes about their role as normal usually and someone is selected based on whatever reasons a manager can make up at 10 to 5 on a Friday when they remember it's due unless someone has actually went above and beyond their responsibilities that month.
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Exactly. It's ineffectual, but it allows management to pretend they are "doing something" for morale, the workforce, retention, or whatever thing they dream up that month. Assuming they are not using it to help their mates.
 
I think team or department of the month is a lot more beneficial and only when done correctly.

My daughters school as dojo master of the week, sum dog master of the week and star of the week.

Star of the week was recently won by the 5 year old boy causing trouble and exposing himself daily. He's a little **** and it's obviously an award that goes to everyone at some point.

Dojo's (or merits if you're old school like me) are awarded for things such as being polite, well mannered, being enthusiastic or 10 out of 10 for spellings. At least this is measured but dojo's being given out are not consistent across the class and in some cases, I know a child has won because they've been told to add a dojo for something but have done it a couple of times.

Sum Dog is an app that the kids use, it measures time spent, achievements etc. Much better way of doing it measurement wise but again, this has pitfalls, kids stuck on tablets outside of school, parents doing it for them, in fact our friends kid did amazingly well on one of the games winning him the master of the week award, then his mum dropped it in that she'd been playing on it as well.

I don't think any way is perfect of doing it and it can completely demotivate staff as well. I used to work my backside off, making improvements on efficiency etc, training staff but the person that was always recognised was the guy that did nothing other than send lots of update emails. In some cases, sending an email saying he was going to send me an email.

My current employer does awards, and it's the best way I've seen of doing it. Once a quarter we all get an email asking us to vote for the person we feel fits one of the 4 company ideals and why. These are all collated, then the directors and previous winners get together to help to choose who they think should get the award.
 
I think it generally depends on the industry you work in and the team of people you work with.

I worked as Manager of a team of just five other guys in the Maintenance department of a hotel, and I was asked to produce a Recognition Program as the Maintenance department didn't have one implemented - Although I was reluctant to do so at first as I've always found engineers/technicians are somewhat of a different beast of personality than other workers in other departments, it did actually work out quite well. However, the monthly recognition did include $20 of vouchers for a local store, so there was an additional bonus there.
 
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dowie said:
wait you were dishing out an award 12 times a year to one of potentially only 5 recipients?
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Hahaha yep :p But they loved it :p I didn’t think it was necessary but I was forced to put it in place by the Hotel Manager. But when it was put in place, they appreciated being acknowledge (considering every department in the hotel had an employee of the month, I can understand). Wouldn’t necessarily say they worked any harder, but morale was improved.

However, I’ve worked with engineers since then at a different company where I’m confident a “employee of the month” just wouldn’t work - Different Scenario, Different Personalities etc.
 
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Recognising somebody's contribution by giving them $20 is more insulting than just saying "thanks" now and again and taking it into account in the pay review
 
Caged said:
Recognising somebody's contribution by giving them $20 is more insulting than just saying "thanks" now and again and taking it into account in the pay review
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Different scenarios work differently - This was at a hotel on a ski resort where no one was getting paid very well due to the location. I still think it worked well in the scenario we were working in.
 
I think so long as they all recognised the slightly farcical nature of it you could have a bit of fun with it and make sure that say everyone gets it at least once in a given year... like even the most useless guy perhaps getting it once at Christmas time :D

Though this could backfire at a tribunal if you ever wanted to sack them for being useless "But I woz employee of the month last year"
 
Good idea, but it can also make workers (that haven’t won) feel overlooked. I used to work somewhere that would do an annual awards ceremony (in the workshop, last day of the year) where they pretty much have everyone won an award for one reason or another.

It worked because it was funny, everyone got a gift and it wasn’t taken too seriously. For instance, they’d do the “best new starter”, “**** up of the year” and a few other categories including one which came with a booby prize which was usually a signed photo of the MD :D
 
Steampunk said:
Exactly. It's ineffectual, but it allows management to pretend they are "doing something" for morale, the workforce, retention, or whatever thing they dream up that month. Assuming they are not using it to help their mates.
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That's over simple. For some people its ineffectual but for others it massively boosts moral and makes people work harder. A lot of it depends where you work and what type of staff you have.
 
I've never been a fan of such awards.

My current company run an 'Employee of the Year' scheme. In principle it is a reasonable idea and equitable, as it is voted for by the employees. However, I work in an office of 12 staff and each of us I would say are worked hard and put in many 'free' hours (overtime is unpaid > nominally voluntary, but there are times during the year when you can little avoid working extra due to volume). So to reward one person in a small team has always to me seemed unfair, and I have abstained from voting on both occasions to date. It is quite telling that the two winners have been the successive employees who worked the most out of hours. The award is nominal and it feels like a substitute for actually paying the staff for their efforts; no company should have to rely on employees being willing to start at 8am and finish at 7pm (on a 9-5 contract) on a frequent basis and make zero effort to remedy the situation by actually employing the correct amount of staff.

Steampunk said:
How many stories have we had on these forums where companies suddenly find money for pay rises when someone hands in their notice?
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For what it's worth, I have recently been awarded a 3% rise; the reasons for the rise were couched in the fact I will soon be adding another remit to my job. There are four people in my department; one, the former winner of the EOTY, had just resigned and in a staff review (being honest, usually overly so) I had mentioned that I did not see a long-term progression line for myself within the company. And the very next week I am awarded a rise? Call me a cynic...

Don't get me wrong I am grateful to have the extra and that is not to sound unappreciative, but the timing...
 
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Ayahuasca said:
The only way to make employers like that realise how terrible they are is to go elsewhere to be honest, and even then some of them don’t get it.
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That is certainly true from current experience.

I have been with my employer (in short, a qualifications awarding body) for just over two years. We have a chronic problem retaining staff. In that time, in a company of 12, we have had 9-10 staff changes. In my department I have worked under four exam managers in those two years, four fellow exams controllers and three administrators. We are a well-known company, albeit in a niche sector and located in a small village. Good staff are hard to find, job adverts occasionally return little of promise and we are uncompetitive against an international company (different sector) and Universities located reasonably nearby. The company should be doing everything in its power to retain able staff, as each change sets us back months in terms of training time and has a potential negative effect on our customers, but the upper-level management are resigned to burying their collective heads in the sand, with the view that those leaving each had valid reasons for doing so.

That they may do, some of them, but (as in the case of my departed colleague) when employees feel they have to start early and finish late daily to get through their work, gradual demoralisation should be obvious. Personally, I refuse to do it, working the odd extra 30mins, 1hour here and there. Young family, bigger priorities, and if it wasn't for the fifteen-second commute I expect I'd be amongst the departed.

The catch-line has always been 'no money in the budget' for extra staff, yet we waste an eye-watering amount of money on IT/web/design support and with backwards, inefficient working practices; until I arrived nobody even had a dual-screen ffs. Anyway, I've gone slightly outside topic so I will now desist :mad:
 
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I won employee of the month once, 250 quid. Took the whole team out for lunch and put it on the calendar as "There is no I in Team". Management were not impressed. I did not win employee of the month again.
 
amigafan2003 said:
I won employee of the month once, 250 quid. Took the whole team out for lunch and put it on the calendar as "There is no I in Team". Management were not impressed. I did not win employee of the month again.
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did you also finish the statement with "but there is a u in ****"? that could upset a manager...
 
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