Abstract:
Reward management is cardinal for success of performance management and has unlimited potential in motivating employees to give their best performance. Managing reward and leveraging it as a performance management strategy requires a holistic approach and professional acumen. Reward is a double-edged sword. Reward must be made and extended keeping in mind individual and collective interests of employees, and at the same time it should have an intimate relationship and alignment with strategic objectives of an organization. Traditionally, interests of organization (management) and that of its employees as far as monetary rewards are concerned, are assumed to be conflictive. There is logic in such an assumption. However, modern economies, changing cultural ethos and ultra people management practices have altered this proposition ti a great extent. As a result today there are practices like ESOPs, involvement, empowerment and partnerships offering to workforce. However, much remains to be done in this area. First priority for organizations is that they must reorient their compensation, incentive and recognition schemes to be performance focused. These individual and piecemeal practices should also be brought under the umbrella of reward management. In other words, reward must be used and deployed as a powerful corporate strategy to obtain superior employee and organizational performance. Keeping in view this first and important priority, this chapter presents reward-based performance management strategy to obtain superior instrument. This instrument is expected to enhance performance of employees and contribute towards creating towards creating performance excellence as a way of organizational life.