Reward Management Essay -- Reward Systems RM

Reward Management (RM) has been defined as the distribution of monetary and non-monetary rewards to employees in an effort to align the interests of the employees, the organisation, and its shareholders (O’Neil, 1998). In addition O’Neil (1998) also suggests that a RM system can serve the purpose of attracting prospective job applicants, retaining valuable employees, motivating employees, ensuring legal requirements relating to direct and indirect rewards are not violated, assisting the company in achieving human resource and business objectives, and ultimately assisting the organisation in obtaining a competitive advantage. Various conflicts in the RM system can affect the benefits that can be obtained. It has been argued that performance management systems only provide superficial motivations and have little effect on underlying behaviours and attitudes. Although the RM system can have some limitations, there is strong argument for the benefits, and logic also deems it as a credible strategy to assist in improving employee performance. The implementation and application of RM within the subject organisation has provided many opportunities for increased performance. Limitations and inequities have been recognised in the system employed, mainly due to the lack of assessment and changes to the system in order to align it with organisational objectives. Reward Management Theory Reward management involves defining, facilitating, and encouraging performance. The positive effects a successful RM system can provide to employee performance and in turn organisational success and competitive advantage are clear. This appeal has driven many organisations to take up RM as part of their performance management stratagem. The RM system falls into the broader process of the performance management model within the organisation, as stated by Clark (as cited in Human Resource Management, 2000). This involves the continual process of setting performance objectives, measuring outcomes, providing feedback on the results, providing rewards which are linked to desired outcomes and finally evaluating and making amendments to objectives and activities of the system. When developing an effective RM procedure as part of organisational strategy many considerations must be addressed. O’Neil (1998) suggests the following key methods of linking pay to performance; ascerta... ...e â€Å" The reward system of the organisation guides the actions that generally have the greatest impact on the motivation and performance of individual employees†. Similarly, Wah (2000) argues that companies which treat their high-performing employees significantly better than those that don't are the best-performing companies around and they reside in the upper quartile of shareholder returns. In addition Lawler (as cited in, Readings In Contemporary Employment Relations, 1998) states that if all the psychological rewards are removed employees will grudgingly remain at work, however if all the financial rewards are removed they would most likely leave. As most of the literature suggests, employee performance is a vital element in organisational survival and success. The systems developed and applied to facilitate the management of employee performance are therefore major contributors to the overall success of performance management. To remain effective the RM process should not be isolated from other HRM functions, in addition the process must be dynamic and constantly aligned to organisational strategy. In these instances long term benefits for all stakeholders can be realised.