What have we been up to lately, you ask? Well, we had the privilege
of hosting a breakfast event with HR Future at their HR Future
Breakfast Club last week. The event allowed us the opportunity to share some insight and concepts regarding behaviour, engagement and gamification
within the reward and recognition (R&R) space. We also had a look at some
tips in developing an R&R strategy. We wouldn’t want anyone to feel left
out, so we are dedicating this week’s blog to summarise the things you need to
know. Nice of us, we know.
The culture of an organisation plays an integral part in its
performance. That is why, in the search for creating high performance
organisations and teams, the question of culture keeps popping up. So how can
we define and tame this daunting beast of a concept called organisational culture? Well, in its most basic form, culture is merely
made up of the day-to-day habits of individuals and teams. So if we want to
create an organisational culture, this would be a good place to start. Define
the habits that form the essence of the culture that you want to create, and
then find practical and meaningful ways of encouraging and enforcing those
habits. A key in creating habits is also understanding what motivates people.
Two of the main needs that individuals have is to belong and to
feel valued. Motivational and behavioural theories overlap in a way that gives
us a clearer insight in to how we can utilise reward and recognition in
organisations in order to meet these needs. The table below shows our
interpretation of the motivational theories of Maslow and Herzberg together
with the needs that can be directly impacted by R&R. There is a pretty
exciting overlap between this and employee engagement as well, but more on
about that on another day.
From these theories we see that R&R speaks directly
to two needs levels, while it may also speak to more (depending on how it is
set up). The question then becomes, what
is the best way to do this? We know that people respond to the manner in
which information is communicated and accessed. We also know that people want
to be able to take part, be recognised for their efforts, belong to their groups,
know how they compare to those groups, and of course.. have fun! Enter
gamification.
Work and fun does not have to be mutually exclusive.
Similarly, no activity needs to be boring, and you can turn most things into a
game if you really wanted to. As an example, we had a look at The Speed Camera Lottery (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iynzHWwJXaA)
a fun experiment that changed driver behaviour through introducing gaming. One
of the biggest aspects of getting, and keeping people involved in anything is
feedback, more specifically real-time
feedback. This is integral to gamification, and should be non-negotiable in
R&R as well. Some other aspects of a game that should be considered include:
it has a clear objective; it offers choice of actions to be taken and reward to
earned; it connects people and allows for interaction; it recognises
achievements (big and small); and it centres on competition. When we apply this
to R&R we align our strategies to include rewards with choice, the freedom
to recognise others, social appeal and interaction, fun, and technology.
The last event of the breakfast was a practical activity of
designing and budgeting for an R&R strategy. We talked through the process
of determining the elements of your R&R programme, and also the ways to set
up your budget accordingly.
If you would like any additional information on any aspect of this blog, or if you need assistance with designing, or budgeting your
R&R programme - give us a shout at info@workpoints.co.za, or set up your own free trial on our Workpoints website and try it for
yourself!
PS: Shout out to Amanda Mohr for her contribution and presentation on the day.
PS: Shout out to Amanda Mohr for her contribution and presentation on the day.
Happy Friday peeps!
Author
Estée Roodt (MCom Industrial Psychology)
Estée is part of our Behavioural Specialist team here at Workpoints. She is our keen researcher, our problem-solver and our number one sports star.
Estée is part of our Behavioural Specialist team here at Workpoints. She is our keen researcher, our problem-solver and our number one sports star.

Workpoints is a fully featured reward, recognition and incentives platform that provides you with the tools to create a high performance organisation. Our easy-to-use application integrates simply into any organisation and instantly encourages staff to do the daily grind with excellence and energy.
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