Roving Roofer SEP 2000

Providing Positive Reinforcement to Motivate Employees to Improve

Many of us manage by exception, meaning that we focus on the few behaviors that don’t fit the main pattern. Therefore, since most people do right most of the time, we single out the inappropriate behavior for criticism rather than reward all of the good behavior. We provide more negative reinforcement than we do positive reinforcement.

As leaders, we have to get better at rewarding people for the appropriate behavior. For example, make a point of praising employees in public – a highly effective motivational technique. The vast majority of employees improve their job performance after being publicly complemented.

There are so many activities managers could positively reinforce that we need to time our reinforcers, even plan them, to have maximum impact. Reinforce appropriate behavior immediately after the action is complete. Tying the reinforcement to the activity endows the reinforcement with a higher value. And a random schedule of reinforcement produces greater impact. If workers know that every Friday the boss comes to the job site and every Friday the boss says, “You guys did great this week,” the predictability of this reinforcement causes it to lose value. A better approach is to produce a random schedule to reinforce different behaviors.

For example, if your employees receive a $200 bonus each year, that bonus quickly becomes part of their expected compensation. Thus, if the company suffers poor financial results one year and cannot afford to pay the bonus, your employees would be dissatisfied because they assumed the bonus to be part of their compensation; the bonus, in this case, would act as a demotivator. If, however, the dollar amount, the timing, and the activity rewarded were variable, the bonus would be a definite motivator.

Since reward isn’t always possible, punishment may have to be used occasionally to discourage undesirable behavior. But it’s very difficult to give good criticism or effective punishment. In fact, most punishment produces exactly the opposite result of what you’re trying to accomplish. Employees are demotivated and demoralized by punishment they perceive to be unfair.

When forced to reprimand employees, do it in private, not in public. And never ridicule the employee. A good technique for pointing out a deficiency is to sandwich the constructive criticism or punishment between two positive statements. For instance, the positive statement could be, “Your project is ahead of schedule at this point.” Then point out the problem, “However, your costs are not in line with our budget.” Then add the second positive statement or reinforcement, “So, let’s see if you can stay within budget, as you’ve done on all of your jobs in the past three months.”

Most leaders don’t like punishing and realize it doesn’t get good results. Yet managers continually focus on punishment rather than positive reinforcement because it’s much easier to punish the exception than it is to reward all of the positive activities. But effective leaders take the time to improve morale and quality by providing consistent positive reinforcement and feedback. When people are complemented, they try to repeat their good performance. Don’t assume that if everything is going well, you don’t need to compliment. On the contrary, it’s when things are going well that you need to comment, praise, and reward. Recognition of achievement is a powerful, positive motivator.

Providing positive reinforcement is an ongoing process. Learn to do it all the time, even when you’re doing something else. If you get into the habit of doing it constantly, it will pay off for you, for your employees, and for your company.

FMI Management Letter – June 2000


Volume 12 Issue 4	September 2000