Rewarding Teams : Lessons From the Trenches

by Glenn M. Parker, David Zielinski, Jerry McAdams

Book Overview

Auf der Grundlage von Fallstudien aus einer Vielzahl von Unternehmen haben die Autoren Entlohnungsprogramme für Teams entworfen, die Entwicklung und Erfolg fördern sollen. "Rewarding Teams" nennt drei... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0787948098
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 0.8" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

A practical and timely topic

Rewarding Teams is a helpful and practical book that addresses a topic that is very timely in our "virtual" team business world. The case study format from real organizations adds credibility and makes it very user friendly. The failures, successes and lessons learned approach is a great way to find out invaluable information that can be applied to your organization. It has certainly helped me assist my constituents in the mostly uncharted area of team recognition and rewards versus individual.

An invaluable guide for team-based reward and recognition.

"Certainly there are good books for compensation professionals on the technical aspects of designing incentive plans for teams, and handbooks that offer creative laundry lists of recognition ideas of individual contributors. But there are few sources for people on the firing line looking for practical advice coupled with real-life examples of how to design reward and recognition systems for teams, not individuals. This book provides practical advice and detailed examples of effective organizational unit (group) incentives, project team incentives, and recognition plans. It is for managers in organizations that have made a commitment to a collaborative culture and who want to create effective reward systems for teams...At the heart of this book are case studies of reward plans in companies large and small, in many industries, and of many cultures...Whenever organizations try to make teamwork the norm, many supporters become frustrated because the usual reward-and-recognition programs don't support it. In this book, the fictional BIZCOM Corporation and its managers show how frustration about teams can turn into success. BIZCOM's trials and tribulations are based on the authors' years of experience working with organizations" (from the Preface).In this context, Glenn Parker, Jerry McAdams, and David Zielinski:* describe BIZCOM, a fictitious company that wants to use a team approach to adress a critical business problem, and discuss team and organizational development issues such as vision, sponsorship, membership, stakeholders, launches, training, coaching, management style, and organizational support.* discuss reward and recognition systems, communications and performance feedback, and training and development tools for creating a team-based organization.* introduce an organizing model for rewards, and discuss organizational culture. At this point, they argue that "One general description of the whole organization's culture is possible, although organizations are made up of a number of suborganizational units, each with a slightly different culture. Accounting has a different culture than marketing. Manufacturing has a different culture than customer service. Hopefully, they are aligned with the overreaching organizational culture, with the differences simply reflecting the nature of the work they do". And they also argue that "One of the keys to success in improving organizational performance is to ensure that reward plans reinforce the desired culture, or at least attempt to reduce the gap between the existing and desired culture".* define six types of reward plans: (1) individual base compensation and benefits, (2) individual capability (competency), (3) individual incentives, (4) recognition, (5) project team incentives, (6) organizational unit incentives. (But throughout the book they mainly focus on the last three plans - more detailed examination of these plans in several companies and review of their

Very Practical and Thorough!

For those of us helping to develop team-based work environments, this book hits the mark. I already know the theories. What I need are some examples of how to make it work in the trenches. It provides the kind of practical, down-to-earth examples that show what really works in the real world.This book isn't a simplistic, one-dimensional approach to recognition. It reviews all aspects of the development, care and maintenance of strong teams, and provides a clear understanding of the role that recognition and rewards play.The first chapter is a great primer on the right way to get teams up and running. Parker, et. al. throw in numerous tips for team leaders on how to get the ball rolling, and alert you to potential pitfalls and traps and how to deal with them. Chapter one puts team rewards and recognition in the proper context.I didn't realize how superficial my understanding of team rewards was until I read the book. For example, the book differentiates incentives from rewards, an important distinction that I have to admit was somewhat muddied in my thinking. It illustrates how rewards and recognition need to fit with the organizational culture, and show how this works in practice in organizations.The authors use a fictitious team start-up situation in the first two chapters to add another dimension to aid the reader in understanding the principles of team development from the team leader's perspective. I found myself wondering if the authors had worked in some of the companies I was in. They clearly have "been there and done that."Chapters three through five profile almost twenty companies to provide actual examples of how to implement the various approaches to team reward and recognition to address different situations and challenges. For example, the book goes into the rationale, philosophy, criteria and detailed administration of Chase Manhattan Bank's Service Star Program, as well as the organization's candid assessment of the program's strengths and weaknesses. Some companies are large, some small. Government, non-profit, and associations are also represented. Some use stock options, some cash awards. Some tie in team performance with individual performance reviews. Throughout, "successes and lessons learned" enable the reader to benefit from what others have done.This is an example of the improvements one company decided to make in its approach after the initial evaluation period: - Give plants more control in choosing and tailoring plan metrics. - Encourage employees to get involved in creating goals - Shift the burden of plan communication from the corporate level to the plantsThe final chapter summarizes the key principles and insights from the authors' work.I would highly recommend this book for executives who are responsible for creating the organization culture, operating managers and human resource staffs. It should be REQUIRED reading for anyone involved in forming, leading and supporting teams

A Highly Practical Resource on Team Rewards

If you're reading this review you already get it -- you can't engage teams while only rewarding individuals. But how do you do it? The literature and seminars that purport to deal with team-based rewards are heavy on theory but lean on actual application. "Rewarding Teams", however, provides an outstanding, highly practical resource for executives, line managers and HR professionals. It builds on the reward systems model presented in Jerry McAdam's prior book, "The Reward Plan Advantage", presenting strategies that reposture compensation dollars from a cost of doing business to an investment in performance improvement. The many case studies in the book provide an extremely helpful framework for understanding the issues, alternatives and key success factors in designing team-based reward systems. The last chapter, a summary of "lessons from the trenches", is alone worth the investment in the book.

Rewarding Teams: Lessons from the Trenches

An easy read with real life examples and the resulting lessons. The identification of best principles is great. This goes beyond just saying what others are doing (best practices) to the principles under-pinning the practices. If rewarding teams is your interest, you will benefit from this book.