As companies grow and management receives less and less training on how humans behave and perceive things, I have noticed that the impact of their decisions about employees tends to go unnoticed. This has significantly affected a company’s engagement with their employees, as well as significantly lowering overall productivity of the workforce.

“would you punish someone who has done nothing wrong?"

I heard a long time ago a question posed “would you punish someone who has done nothing wrong?" The normal person would say absolutely not! Then why would we reward someone who has done nothing right?

To have an outstanding and exemplary team there must be a team that is not. In other words, one can not exist without the other

Now let us think about this for a minute and bring it into the business world. First, we must accept and understand that by rewarding someone you are inherently punishing another. For someone to win, there has to be a loser. For someone to be a high performer, there must be a lower performer. To have an outstanding and exemplary team, there must be one that is not. In other words, one can not exist without the other.

Now take a deep thought and identify in your mind how many people work in your department / company who people know underperform, yet they are still employed and receive no “punishment” for underperformance. Considering that one cannot exist without the other, this would then mean that those who are performing are being punished as we reward those who underperform. I don’t know if you worked with someone who did half the work you did and got paid the same while receiving the same bonus you did. If you have been in that situation, you know exactly what I am talking about. By that person receiving the rewards equal to you and having a drastically lower output, it is natural that you felt like you were being punished.

While we must have empathy and trust with individuals, we also must have empathy and trust for the full team.

Many companies and managers do not take this into consideration or lack the understanding of how deeply this impacts the culture within an organization. Often times they do not want to “write up” or council the person underperforming. Many managers would never actually FIRE someone for underperforming because of a false sense of empathy. I have heard and seen it many times; “he has a family”, “they are going through a rough time” etc. While we must have empathy and trust with individuals, we also must have empathy and trust for the full team.

I have seen managers struggle with empathy and trust within the team and not understand how rewarding those who underperform is a disservice, and frankly insulting for those that have excellent performance. This makes the performers question why they try and why they put in the extra effort. Slowly, it establishes a culture where people simply stop caring.

To bring in a personal story, I was once one of those employees who were “punished” due to the reward system. Performance evaluations were due so they gave me the typical self-evaluation form. I completed it as objectively as someone can evaluate themselves (I marked one notch below what I felt on every single question to be safe!). When I went to meet with my boss he explained how I was average and my performance was “average”. I was a bit confused and showed him that I had lead 80% of the projects in the department, all of which were successful. The closest person in the department to issue resolution resolved 30% less than I had in the past year. He maintained that I was average at the job so I said ok and went about my business. As all employees generally talk, there was a discussion about this within the team (away from the boss as usual) and they all got the SAME average rating. They asked me what I got and one of them joked that I must have gotten a big raise and a great performance review, as they knew what I had done. In my immature disgust, I told them that I was rated average as well. The look of shock on my co-workers faces was of some consolation to me.

That manager in a single performance review changed the culture of work within that department.

It took about 3 months before I quit and moved on to a different job and the team that was puzzled by my review. There was conversation for some time where they said “why bust our butts, look at what happened with him." That manager in a single performance review changed the culture of work within that department.

understand that equals in pay and treatment with differences in output means you are punishing those with higher output.

Overvaluing average or poor performance is the same as punishing high performance. You must always keep this in mind in regards to your treatment of employees, salary ranges, bonuses, reviews etc. Allowing poor performance to remain on a team is rewarding it which will pull down the overall performance of your department. Always try to help them improve their performance and everybody doesn’t have to be a rock star. However, you must ensure you are rewarding the correct type of performance. Understanding that equals in pay and treatment with differences in output, means you are punishing those with higher output.