The Safe Library - Service, Safety, & Security with Dr. Steve Albrecht

The Power of Rewards and Recognitions: Library staffers work for more than just money
By Dr. Steve Albrecht

Consider working in an environment where you only hear from your bosses when you screw up and never when you do well.

It seems we have had to become a nation of self-rewarders, patting ourselves on the backs for our accomplishments at work, instead of waiting for our bosses, co-workers, or patrons to do it. The list of employees who say, “My boss constantly praises me for my efforts,” is often painfully short.

In reality, some library directors, managers, or supervisors say they are just too busy and/or distracted to see the value of formally recognizing and rewarding their people. “They know I appreciate their efforts. Do I have to tell them every single day?” The short answer is yes, with sincerity, with timeliness, and with impact.

Business bestseller Bob Nelson has written extensively on how to reward and motivate employees. He suggests the benefit of formal incentive programs, giving physical rewards to employees. These small but regular gifts, that can come from the library’s leader’s budget, and that go far beyond, “Good job. See you tomorrow.”

The subject of incentive programs always seems to fall to the bottom of a leader’s to-do list. This is a shame on many levels, because people will work hard for more than just pay. What about giving employees gift cards, gas cards, movie passes, dinner certificates, the special close-to-the-front-entrance parking space, and the most popular incentives of all - working only a half-day at full pay or getting a discretionary day off?

When library employees are publicly noticed and heralded for what they have done, they’ll do more because they feel good doing it and they know it’s important. And when they get singled out for their energy and enthusiasm, hard work might just lead to more hard work.

Non-monetary rewards can come from a multitude of sources: reading a positive patron email at an all-hands staff meeting; having the an elected official or Library Board member formally recognize employees at a training meeting; writing a blogpost about the employee for the library’s website or Facebook page; or announcing the employee’s promotion or anniversary date of hire.

Employees who say, “Don’t make a big deal about my birthday,” secretly like it when folks make a big deal about their birthday – cake, cards, balloons tied to the chair, confetti on their desks, and hearing that song with their name in it.

Napoleon said, “An army travels on its stomach.” Today, he’d know that a work team is often motivated by food. More money is great, extra benefits are fine, and time off is very important, but food has always been a powerful motivator for employees.

Whether it’s pizzas, salads, and sodas on Fridays, doughnuts for the weekend staff, bagels and coffee on Mondays, or cake and cupcakes at the monthly employee birthday lunches, the secret to using goodies as a reward is to be random with both the selections and the dates. If employees get the same tired choices each week after month, their enthusiasm wanes quickly.

Any employee reward, from food to formal recognition programs, should be as episodic as your luck during a casino visit. If you won all the time, the casino would close; if you lost all the time, the casino would close. Success in the casino business comes when the players don’t expect their triumphs. As such, the element of surprise seems to work best when it comes to employee reward programs.

Public recognition is necessary, motivating, and builds teamwork. Whether it’s a gift card or a years-of-service award presented by a city, county, or library bigwig, employee rewards work.

(Originally published at https://stevealbrecht.substack.com/p/the-power-of-rewards-and-recognitions)