REINFORCING THE CULTURE OF SUCCESS

REINFORCING THE CULTURE OF SUCCESS

Much of the success of a growing organization depends on close and effective teamwork. Reward systems need to support this. This means that as organizations grow they have much to gain from implementing:

• performance rewards which reflect team as well as individual achievement;
• consistent and as far as possible harmonized benefits;
• the beginnings of a formal approach to setting internal relativities so that a defensible 'pecking order' emerges;
• effective performance management as part of the way the business is run;
• management of the reward system by an individual who is a wise custodian of both policy and implementation until the organization is large enough to have a personnel/HR/remuneration professional to do the job and has grown/improved the management capability in reward issues.

This last point is, in fact, critical. Experience shows that most of the mistakes made by new business in the reward area are because the wrong person had accountability for it. If he or she perceives reward management as merely an administrative system, fails to take a broad view of its purpose or (at worst) incompetently develops policies that divide and cause dissent, then the business is at risk. Good and promising businesses have foundered on disagreements over pay. Sensible pay policies are the oil in the works of any organization. In a small, growing organization oil can turn to grit very fast indeed.