Battery Cables and Behavior Change

If the roadside assistance guy had jumped my car, and I had tipped him $5, he would have been cool with it. Why? Because it was a little extra compensation for services rendered. The pen might have offended him, but I doubt the cash would have. Had I given nothing to the roadside assistance guy (no pen, no money) he would have probably muttered “cheap jerk” under his breath. Verbal praise here would have fallen on the roadside assistance man's deaf ears, because it would have seemed insincere and cheap.

Social reinforcers work well only if they are sincere, specific and not seen as manipulative. That's why training in properly giving feedback and verbal reinforcement is very important. But in the relationship between employer/employee, many companies sadly are making the same $5 mistake that I made with my repair guy.

FINDING THE RIGHT REWARDS

Busy managers don't have time to find out what gift is reinforcing for each employee. In the 1980s, a supervisor had 10 people reporting to him; in today's downsized-middle-management world, he might easily have to oversee 100. How is that supervisor or steering committee member going to know what reinforcers work for their people? They don't and they can't. Even though that would be great, realistically there isn't enough time to know.

So what do most companies do? They succumb to the easy way out. They give people money, a hat with a logo or a gift card.

Granted, rewarding your people with gift cards and money has advantages:

• It's easy.

• People can choose things to get with their gift card/money.

• The CAVE (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) people stop whining — sometimes.

But rewarding with gift cards and money has these important disadvantages:

• Sometimes, it conflicts with the internal motivation or self-reinforcement that we want people to develop (as it with did my repair guy).

• People become “entitled” to the cash; they expect it and their behavior is driven by the money and not self-reinforcement.

• Dozens of studies show that non-cash reinforcer gifts have three to six times the impact of cash on behavior.

I have seen many companies fall into the trap of confusing compensation with recognition. These companies ultimately fail to get people to a higher level of behavior since they rely solely on carrot-and-stick approaches.

So, what is the right approach to ensure we're delivering real positive reinforcement to our employees?

1. Reinforcement and recognition must be linked to the behavior within seconds, not days or weeks.

2. Recognition should be specific and can include both tangible and social reinforcement. Train managers to deliver both effectively.

3. Make the act of giving an award fun and memorable. Provide each person an array of options to choose from so they can find something personally reinforcing to them. Use cash card substitutes as a last resort, or filter the choices so people won't just pay off their bills or buy a tank of gas with their award.

4. Track everything down to each behavior reinforced when, why and by whom.

5. Analyze your data to move the process to the next level.

Granted, reinforcing the right behaviors at the right time in the correct way can be a difficult science, but it's well worth the effort. Soon your employees may be walking out the door at the end of the day, just like the repair guy, with a smile on their faces and a story to tell.

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Bill Sims Jr. is the president of the Bill Sims Co., which has created behavior-based recognition programs for more than 40 years. Contact Bill Sims at 803-600-8325 or visit http://www.billsims.com.