Getting Happy with the Rewards King

Getting Happy with the Rewards King

Bob Nelson has sold more than 1.5 million books by telling companies how to make small rewards yield big loyalty and productivity bonuses. Critics scoff at a "baubles and trinkets" approach, but Nelson has plenty of believers.

By Leslie Gross Klaff

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s an expression of gratitude, managers at a bank in Horsham, Pennsylvania, don chef hats and aprons to flip hamburgers for employees at a "Grill Your Boss" cookout. At a seminar-planning firm in Virginia Beach, female staff members are thanked with complimentary pedicures. Employees at a Chicago health-care company are rewarded with balloons, belly dancers, and a singer in a gorilla suit.

Why are these companies doing this? Because Bob Nelson says so.

Nelson, best-selling author of 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, has firmly established himself as the rewards king in a field packed with hundreds of motivational speakers and writers who talk the same language. He has platoons of fans who applaud his basic premise: While money is important to employees, thoughtful recognition motivates them to perform at higher levels.

He also has critics who dismiss him as a self-promoter, arguing that giving incentives such as parties and other treats is foolish and condescending. "Rewards are, at best, a waste of time," says Boston-based Alfie Kohn, author of the book Punished by Rewards. Kohn and other detractors charge Nelson with promoting simplistic, feel-good solutions to complex problems such as low morale and high turnover. "Working with employees, bringing them into decision-making, helping to design a democratic workplace takes time, talent, skill, care, and above all, courage," Kohn says. "1001 ways to manipulate people to jump through hoops" can't address those important issues--though "throwing baubles and trinkets at your employees is a hell of a lot easier."

Nelson counters by saying that the system isn't the problem. It's the personal relationships employees have with their managers that are critical to productivity and performance. Managers can't force employees to like their jobs, but they should create an environment that encourages workers to want to excel, and should provide meaningful rewards. The effectiveness of incentives has been substantiated by more than a century of research, adds Nelson, whose own credentials include a master's degree in organizational behavior from Berkeley, a Ph.D. from the Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, and years of experience working for top executives such as management guru Ken Blanchard.

Nelson, a 46-year-old father of two who lives near San Diego, is so passionate about his work that he has trouble separating it from his personal life. At home, he and his wife, Jennifer, use his rewards philosophy in raising their two children, Daniel, 12, and Michelle, 7. Rather than badgering them about cleaning their rooms, for example, they make a real effort to give them a pat on the back for a job well done. They try to make sure the "ratio of nagging to positive encouragement" is higher on the positive end, he says.

His message is, of course, a harder sell in a soft economy, when many managers argue that employees should be happy simply to have a job. To add more credibility to his work, Nelson recently teamed up with IBM consultant Dean Spitzer to write his new book, The 1001 Rewards & Recognition Fieldbook. "My philosophy on rewarding and recognizing employees is to be real with employees in an up-front and sincere way," says Nelson, who earns $12,500 a day on the speaking circuit. "Managers need to think about what their employees need and what's important to them" when they design incentive programs, he says.

Deep roots in human resources

Nelson started working in human resources and writing books right out of college. After earning a communications degree in the late 1970s at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, he got a job in human resources at a computer company and soon became known by friends as an astute job counselor. One Sunday morning he decided to write his ideas down. He was only 25 when his first book, The Job Hunt, was published. It sold 60,000 copies.

It was in 1985 that he noticed a review of one of Blanchard's books in the Wall Street Journal and decided to give him a call. He landed a job interview and was hired to co-author a business textbook with Blanchard. Nelson worked there for 10 years and was vice president of product development when he left to start his own consulting company in San Diego and return to graduate school. One night his management professor at Drucker lectured on positive reinforcement and how there was little application of the theory to business. Nelson was intrigued. He decided to prove that positive reinforcement is valuable in the workplace, an idea that spawned 1001 Ways to Reward Employees.

"I got home at midnight and told my wife that I wanted to write a book filled just with ways to praise and thank employees," Nelson says. "I didn't want to fill it with boring studies from other Ph.D.'s. I wanted to make the case through example."

The book sold 1.5 million copies. Soon after its release, speaking engagements began pouring in. Five years ago he started his own business, Nelson Motivation, Inc., in San Diego, and he has since worked with more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies. What makes Nelson stand out, says one of his industry peers, is that he offers practical help. "People need ideas" for motivating employees, says Barbara Glanz, an author and speaker on regenerating spirit in the workplace. "They don't need a lot of philosophy and theory and concept."

Nelson's ideas helped Rhonda Rhodes, vice president of human resources at Universal Orlando, replace the company's traditional recognition programs, such as raffle drawings for employees with perfect attendance, with programs that reward employees for accomplishing a variety of goals. When restaurant workers meet sales goals, they win pizza parties and their managers do their jobs for them for an afternoon. With a "Cause for Applause Card," workers who see other employees making an extra effort receive a card describing the behavior. The cards can be redeemed for prizes such as movie tickets and free meals.

Nelson encourages managers to reward employees daily. The item is less important than the action. A manager at Hewlett-Packard Co.,