Employee Rewards & Recognition Program Parameters in R&D: Key Insights & Solutions

Hi,

I am an HR professional in an embedded automotive R&D setup. We are in the process of formulating an R&R program for our employees. Can anyone suggest how to determine the types of awards and the parameters for them, along with their weightage? I would appreciate your kind assistance with this.

Regards,
Kannan R

What does R&R mean here? Is it Retention & Recruitment; Reward & Recognition;?

You may refer to employee assessment, training, and development by browsing the CITE. Many methods are adopted for employee assessment and reward management.

Dear Kanan,

I am certain you must have found documents and discussions on this topic. I have a question. Are you looking for a program to award your top performers or acknowledge the highest improvement?

Rewards and recognitions are best planned when you are clear about the qualities you want to cultivate within your organization. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Dear BSSV,

Thank you for the reply. I am referring to Rewards and Recognition here. We are an R&D setup, and my concern is identifying the parameters for the awards.

Regards,
Kannan R

Dear Cite Contribution,

Thank you for the reply. We want to reward the best performers under different award categories like Employee of the Year, Best Innovator Award, etc. The problem that I am facing is in identifying the parameters since every set of employees will work on different projects/modules. If we give weightage to productivity as 40%, how are we going to measure it? Please guide me if there are any ways to tackle this.

Regards, Kannan R

One of the suggestions would be that it is better to team up the employees based on the projects. It helps you recognize accurately and also encourages the employees of the whole company. In simple words, there is no point in appreciating the student who has topped from the Accounts compared to the whole college. So, the college recognizes all from the Accounts, biology, management, Arts, and appreciates them individually and at last as a whole. This makes them competitive and productive both in their field and also against the whole. This way, all are satisfied as well as recognized, and the work is easier for you too.

Do not worry about the budget. If that is a concern, you may just reduce the price amount by distributing it.

Instead of following the models, for these kinds of situations, it is always feasible and more adaptive when you bring in your practice which has more credits to it and is unique. This helps you think easily and manage how you want in your kind of environment in your way but worthy way.

Nobody has to bother about the kind of practices you adopt. As long as it is a win-win situation and a system, instead of scratching our heads searching for big and popular model adoptions and trying to make it fit the environment, in reality, it does not!

Think upon that.

All the best.

Dear BSSV,

Thank you for your reply. I am looking for a unique way to do this, and the main problem I face is in identifying parameters to gauge the employees' performance in a quantitative way. Let me think through it again and see.

Regards,
Kannan R

Usually, for your convenience, you may apply five parameters, of which three will be general in application and two specific. It is not possible to provide an exact form as we do not know the type of work and projects the employees are involved in—how many are completed or nearing completion. It is essential to consider whether this is only for the current year or includes past performances such as the previous year, special projects, etc.

It is straightforward; you will easily recognize the general parameters to pinpoint the crucial few that specifically correspond to such projects/jobs. For instance, team coordination, knowledge orientation, completion timeframe, and quality may be key factors. If you refer to assessment checklists, there are numerous resources available online and also on Cite; this shouldn't pose a significant challenge.

It appears that your thoughts are preoccupied with concepts like difficulty, confusion, a mix of projects, and types of employees. I recommend you cease dwelling on these today; mentally lock this part of your brain. By tomorrow, it will become clearer, and you will naturally complete it as soon as possible.

Hello Kannan R,

(Cite Contribution) & BSSV have given some good suggestions.

However, I don't quite agree with your view that "........identifying the parameters since every set of employee will work different projects/modules......." is a problem.

Given my personal background [in embedded/hardware design before I got into recruitment], I can say for sure that whatever the application area/domain/field [Automotive or medical or defense or energy & so on], ultimately, the embedded designer uses the SAME CORE SET OF TECHNICAL SKILLS/KNOWLEDGE-BASE [except that each project/module may use different aspects/parts of his OVERALL knowledge-base, depending on the needs of the project/application]. He/she builds up the knowledge-base along the way of exp.

So one way to handle your concern [how to set the parameter(s) for R&R], suggest having his/her INITIAL set of knowledge-base & evaluate how he/she utilized it over a period of time [maybe the hiring interview records would be needed for some employees]. Also, once you have clarity on what the base knowledge of the employee is, you should also be able to gauge whether he/she has enhanced it or not [and to what extent] along the way of his/her work.

To give one example—since you are in the Automotive domain—this domain has a very typical set of Standards & Protocols [CAN, SAE, etc]. The more one uses them, the better one gets into the depths of them [as is the case with ANY field]. This could lead to forming a set of parameters for R&R.

The concerned Technical Team Leaders/Managers would be the best persons to lay down the Baseline(s) @ the individual member level & the Group level—which would be your Reference point.

Hope you get the point.

All the Best.

Rgds,

TS

Dear Sateesh,

Thank you for the reply; the information provided is useful. I have created the baseline for this plan based on the skill sets for different divisions. Now, as you suggested, I need to meet with the respective tech leads to analyze it.

Regards, Kannan R

Hello Kannan R,

Along with the baseline skill set for different divisions, I think you also need to map individual team members as to where each stands vis-a-vis the Division Baseline. Only then would you be able to gauge later as to the contribution or improvement, or otherwise, of the individual.

All the best.

Rgds,
TS