Rewards And Recognition Play An Intrinsic Role In Managing Productivity: Rajeev Bharadwaj

From traditional to the current hybrid ecosystem, the approach towards rewards and recognition has undergone a significant shift. What are the top three trends you see surfacing in this context?

Reward and recognition are an intrinsic part of managing productivity And human capital and every organization and every manager has to pay due importance to it The first and foremost is the greater push to digital so more and more organizations Are looking at moving to the digital awards One, it takes away the logistic challenges of arranging the mechanics of vouchers and letters and things like that.

Secondly, it is more timely and immediacy, you are able to immediately recognize something in the now, rather than at a predetermined interval, many times organizations end up rewarding long after the event is over And third is that we also leverage social media where our employees are so much engaged in as a digital natives of the generation we employ.

In Sunlife, for example, we use the Facebook platform of Workplace. For our internal communication, we are able to recognize and share the recognitions in real-time. We even maintain a digital dashboard to ensure that there is no disparity, whether it is gender or other aspects of the DEI, which we look at.

So the greater push to digital is the first. The second is a stronger linkage with performance. So we are moving away from the traditional approach of rewarding at the end of the year,which also suffers from a recency bias or a hallow bias.

How do the learning modules provided by organisations impact employee retention? Do they genuinely entice employees to remain loyal to a particular company?

We employ a multiplicity of factors or attention. Most of the employees who at times leave their jobs also do because of boredom and the monotony, which sets in when they do the same kind of job day in and day out. If you link learning to internal mobility and allow employees to learn new skills and explore jobs through the process of internal job posting, you're actually able to give them a new role every 18 to 24 months and thereby enhancing and increasing retention.

from a brand perspective, there are a number of industry-wide recommendations being conferred within organizations. According to you, how critical are these to strengthen a brand journey? 

Well, I must mention that one has to be careful about the recognitions. One is comfortable in going along with it because there are a plethora of recognitions in the market. And it is important that one chooses the recognitions, that have credibility and are administered by a neutral body with an element of objectivity and are respected by the peer group in the sector or segment one is operating in. We are an insurance and wealth management firm. And, therefore at Sunlife, when we look at a brand association with different recognition platforms or, platforms, which are recognizing us for the work we do.

How does reward and recognition function as a tool to attract new talent?

Before I answer your question I wanted to lay some context few days back, we were talking about great resignations, right?

These days we are talking about mass layoffs. So the talent landscape is changing so dramatically you know, because of the external economic forces and the global events, which are happening. , I feel that an organization has to continuously put in more and more effort to attract talent and reward and recognition becomes one aspect when you see an organization recognizing its employees.

Publicly on social media, consistently you get a sense of the culture the organization has, and whether it is the service anniversaries, which are broadcast, or whether it is welcoming new employees into the organization, it makes a lot of difference. To the employee morale and to the target population, which an organization may want to hire.

So from that perspective, I feel it is critical to kind of continuously put in efforts. One also needs to ensure the elements of fairness. elements of performance management, diversity, equity, and inclusion are also you know, properly called out in the messaging to the target employee candidate pool.

I would say that organizations like Glassdoor are also tools where employees both current and previous and ex-employees go and write comments about the organization. And if you have a good reward and recognition culture it will definitely feature in. If you are a well-recognized brand in the market, again, it features.

It is important to have an employee value proposition where employees look forward to coming and working for the organization. 

If, we were to name this one recognition aspect or a way that you think will never go out of faishon, what would that be?

I can tell you a traditional recognition, which I value as an individual, and which I value as a manager. If I was to give it to someone, I would still like to write down or receive a well-written card or a communication which says, thank you for a job well done.

Somebody is noticing your work. Somebody is noticing your caliber and taking out time to actually give out all feedback or, you know, something like just appreciating your work. 

Note: The automatic transcription has been lightly edited for a better reading experience. Some names and parts of the transcription may carry inadvertent errors that we are in the process of editing. Thank you for your understanding.