The relationship between reward management and recognition in the workplace

A major topic of interest since the 1960s has been the area of reward satisfaction. What has been primarily focused on however by researchers is the area of investigating pay (financial reward) satisfaction and the impact that they have on numerous work outcomes with specific attention being paid in the area of turnover. Within turnover literature, additional studies have found a consistent relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention. Organisations more than ever are now realising that there is a need to establish an equitable balance between the employees contribution to the organisation in terms of the work that they do for the organisation and the organisations contribution to the employee for the work that they do. Establishing this balance is one of the main reasons to reward and recognise employees within the organisation. There are three main strategic components that organisation follow in relation to creating this balance which include, compensation, benefits and recognition. (Deeprose,1994). There have been several studies which has been conducted on this topic which have been able to indicate that the most common problem within an organisation in today’s environment would be that the organisation miss the important component of recognition, which is the lost cost, high return ingredient into a well-balanced reward system. A key focus of recognition is to make employees feel appreciated and valued (Sarvadi, 2005). Research has proven that employees who get recognised tend to have higher self-esteem, more confidence, more willingness to take on new challenges and more eagerness to be innovative (Mason, 2001)