
Ask HN: Are you motivated by company-wide achievement awards? - melonkidney
My company has a sheme whereby every quarter, a handful of individuals&#x2F;teams are awarded prizes - let&#x27;s call them &quot;superstar trophies&quot; - to celebrate innovative working, wide-reaching achievements, exceptional leadership, etc.<p>While I always feel happy for the winners of the superstar trophies, on balance I find the scheme kind of demotivating. Personally, I don&#x27;t need the external motivation of a prize, and I&#x27;m always left wondering how many people are feeling a little bummed that their hard work hasn&#x27;t been recognized yet.<p>So my goal with this question is to better understand how other people feel about these kind of schemes. Does your company have one? Does it motivate you? If not, how could it be changed so as to have a more positive effect?
======
kasey_junk
I think they are particularly pernicious because they almost always go to
people either based on popularity or based on being attached to some splashy
new thing.

This often means that line operators or customer service folk have no chance
of winning even though they can be central to the success.

------
mrdependable
I always feel like management gets stuff like this from a list called "How to
get more out of your employees without spending a dime". It reminds me of
being in grade school where they only have so many options for trying to
motivate students.

~~~
pasbesoin
Yep. Like the "pick out a toaster for your 5 years of service" awards.

Seriously -- if you haven't encountered this -- there are businesses that
specialize in... "administering" service awards to employees, for other
businesses -- typically, for larger corporations, where there's enough volume
to make it worth their while.( Or, there were such, the last time I was in
such a position.) You, the awardee, get so many "points", and there's a
catalog, online now, where you can pick from items "costing" no more than the
points you have.

It functions, I guess, not just for anniversaries. Although good luck, for
many BigCorp managers, getting any kind of budget for any other kind of
"reward".

At least the toaster works reasonably well...

But the whole thing was a pretty soulless experience.

I did also receive one of those company awards, at that company. It was
actually pretty low key. Perhaps including because my department had nothing
to do with it. I helped smooth out a perpetually bumpy cross-department and
cross-division business process.

(I got tired of the hassle, set up a meeting, and walked everyone through the
process and their roles and facilitated consensus and agreement about same,
including deliverables and schedules. It wasn't part of my job description or
authority to do so, but what the hell, and everyone else was tired of the
problems, too.)

One day, someone outside my reporting chain showed up with the award. (Maybe
it was a division-wide / level award, rather than company-wide.) No ceremony,
just thanks. I think I got a couple of hundred bucks and a plaque or
certificate or something, too.

It didn't really change the way I operated or my motivation -- what solved the
problem, in the first place. But, it was nice to be noticed.

That was also the position where my manager just showed up with pay raises --
despite the company-wide pay freeze.

I got sh-t done. He, and she, responded accordingly.

And the pay raises were appreciated. Substantial, and not a one-off "pat on
the back".

By the way, further pertaining to the OP type awards. You can get one, and get
canned the following quarter. They often really don't mean much.

P.S. And it can be dangerous if you, the recipient, start to believe they do.

------
mtmail
A company I worked had such a scheme. It works the first couple of quarter,
then it got weird because senior management tried to find a balance between
all departments, all countries and they ran out of candidates. I think it was
5 winners per quarter. They didn't want to reward a person twice. In my
opinion over time they just lowered the standard. There've been employees who
would've deserved winning every year based on their impact.

It didn't motivate me in particular. Got a nice 3 day holiday (flight+hotel),
which was much better than what another person in my office got: an ugly ebike
in company colors which failed to run.

------
arandr0x
They have one, it didn't motivate me before I won it (I didn't think I had a
chance to) nor after (it turns out the pleasure from winning such prize is
less than the pleasure from somebody being spared mental suffering because I
helped with their workload).

Honestly those things are different person to person. A lot of people are
better motivated by cash prizes, whether or not they're public and known in
advance. For some people motivation is feeling like they have the ability to
do something, so they're more motivated by being sent to trainings or given
more authority or a junior person to train. And some people are like me, and
just want to hear thank you.

Anyway, managers don't have the right sense of that stuff. If you feel you
must reward your employees into doing more stuff for you, then go all the way
and implement operant conditioning. If you want your employees to have a well-
deserved vacation at the end of a big project that made you $5M and them $0,
make it for everyone. And if you just want people to feel recognized, leave
them enough time at work or outside it to form real-life relationships with
individual humans who will. You can't scale gratitude.

------
nf05papsjfVbc
\- I've never been motivated by external acknowledgement of anything I've
done.

\- I don't like getting attention.

\- I'd gladly accept a non-trivial cash bonus instead of a trophy.

The company for whom I work does not officially have any such trophies but
some managers-of-managers in some departments tend to publicly acknowledge
some achievements now and then. This is not structured and not regular.
However, I know many people who _are_ motivated by praise and kudos. I suppose
a good manager will try to ensure everyone in his/her team will feel
appreciated in a way that works for that person.

~~~
koliber
I am dealing with this right now at my job.

The company has entered a growth stage, and sales is killing it. Every update
is about this quota exceeded, that deal closed, or that person bringing in
another stellar contract. Overall, it is a nice place to be.

However, the dev team is having some negative feelings. On the one hand,
people tend to be more humble and not prone to self-promotion or auto-
marketing. On the other, the word in the hallway is that developers no longer
feel appreciated.

I don't know what the solution is. Right now, I am taking the approach of
encouraging people out of their comfort zone and owning what they contribute.
It is a lot more difficult to make a developer's achievement understood and
properly appreciated company-wide, but it is a challenge that I am taking on
myself. My goal is to help each dev team member come up with one achievement
per week, and we will spend a little bit of time making it presentable and
easy to understand.

From personal experience, I feel that I don't want to step out and praise
myself. It feels like it won't be a net win. However, if someone else praises
me in a balanced fashion, it does feel good. Kind of like getting a bouquet of
flowers. I would never think that a bunch of flowers would make me feel good.
However, on the rare occasion I did get one, it felt strangely fantastic.

I guess it's important to evaluate how you think you will feel when you get
praise vs. how it actually feels when it is delivered tactfully and honestly.
Sometimes, we do a poor job predicting how we will feel. I suggest stepping
outside of your comfort zone and being a bit vocal about your contribution.

~~~
nf05papsjfVbc
The key (for me) to feel appreciated is in performance reviews and (hopefully)
logically leading to a promotion if the work is that good. Also, getting
greater technical challenges and freedom. The odd occasion where praise or
acknowledgement of quality of work did matter to me was when it came from
those I considered far superior to me in skills that mattered to my work.

EDIT: In your case, if you have developers working for you, who are doing good
work, one thing you could do is to ensure you mention that to your superiors.
It really helps if you can help them understand how the good work makes an
impact on the business.

------
rajacombinator
I’m motivated by cash money. But having worked exclusively at employers who
did not recognize employee performance at all, I’d be interested in seeing how
something like this worked. Even if I didn’t get the award I think it would be
interesting to know who my employer considers to be top performers and why. Of
course the main risk is this becomes a piece of political fluffery. But even
knowing who’s winning the politics game could be interesting. Could be a great
way to foster leadership and learning opportunities.

------
phakding
These achievements are like pro-bowl selection in NFL. If you are on a losing
team, it doesn't matter how hard you worked or what you achieved.

