To explore the question of reward (financial) or recognition (non-Financial): what do employees in Pioneer Investments want and value the most? It was also the objective of this study to investigate which non-financial rewards have the most (if any) impact on the performance of employees.

The central objective of this study was to use a representative sample from Pioneer Investments to explore the question of reward (financial) or recognition (nonfinancial); what do employees in Pioneer Investments want and value the most? It was also the objective of this study to investigate which non-financial rewards have the most (if any) impact on performance of employees. It is my hypothesis that reward and recognition are not mutually exclusive and that the use of one or the other is insufficient to motivate superior and lasting performance from employees. Managers in my company continue to use money as a motivator to help increase employee productivity and declare that a lack of money is the predominant reason why employees leave the company. Hence, this research question is important to me, to see to what extent are financial rewards (money) the main motivator for employees and to examine the importance/value, if any, attached to the non-financial rewards, such as, increased responsibility, interesting and challenging work and opportunities for growth and development. I compiled a questionnaire, outlined in Appendix 1, which asked participants to answer twelve questions plus some questions on their demographics. I chose the questions based on the theory attached to motivation and reward to see if respondents, particularly in a financial services company, attached any value to non-financial rewards and if so what they were. The survey was emailed out to a representative sample of employees and total confidentiality was assured. Respondents were advised that they could email or send via the internal post their completed questionnaires. A total of thirty-six questionnaires, out of a hundred, were returned. In addition, to answer my research question, I used some secondary data, which was compiled for an Employee Opinion Survey, completed in 2003. The findings from my research indicated that respondents valued non-financial rewards highly. The top three non-financial rewards were ( 1 ) Opportunities for Growth and Development, (2) Ownership and Control of work and in joint third place (3) Interesting & Challenging Work and Independence and Autonomy in work. The most popular form of non-financial reward received by employees to date is verbal or written praise from their manager. However, verbal and written praise was ranked only 4th position when employees selected the recognition that they valued the most. The vast majority of respondents feel that financial reward alone would not be enough for them to increase their performance and that financial and non-financial rewards are mutually reinforcing. The first conclusion I came to, having completed the analysis between the primary and secondary research and the theory, was that Pioneer Investments had a lot of work to do in terms of Talent and Career Management for both employees and managers. Career paths need to be established and published, to some degree, in the organisation. Managers need to be trained on how to have effective career discussions. The second and last conclusion was that some work still needed to be done to build on the performance culture in the company. This will entail developing our leaders in the organisation and ensuring our HR practices are designed to build a strong and committed workforce in line with such organisations as GE