Jewelry as Rewards in India

As I learn more about the global recognition industry and the kind of merchandise companies use for their recognition programs, it surprised me that jewelry was a big component in North America. In the Indian business/cultural context, my first reaction was that I couldn’t see an employee recognition program having jewelry as a reward option as jewelry is considered too personal in India. When I researched this a little further, I came up with a number of other reasons for this:

1) To call a piece of jewelry “gold” in India, the gold quality would have to be 18 carat or more (unlike in North America, where the gold quality can be 10 Carat or more). This means that gold jewelry will be expensive and may not fit into the budget of corporate recognition programs.

2) Gold still rules the jewelry market in India and other materials (even expensive ones like platinum) are not valued as well in the market. This makes it more difficult to use alternate materials which may bring the cost down. Also, "real jewelery" (made with genuine stones and high quality gold) has stood as a status symbol. So while imitation jewelry and lower priced jewelry may look as good, but they are not inherently valued by the users, and are typically considered a compromise.

3) Jewelery, in spite of the huge market size in India, is still largely an unorganized business sector, dominated by local, family owned players. This has meant that it isn't easy to precisely determine the quality of the product or go with a brand that's trusted.

4) The primary end users of jewelry are women and historically companies have employed far lesser women than men. According to publicly available data, women accounted for just 18.4% of the working population in the organized sector in India in 2003 (according to the Financial Express). For context: Contrary to popular perception, a large proportion of women in India work – primarily in the unorganized sector.

My thoughts on using Jewelry as a reward option in India - the best bet would be to stick to the following:

1) Genuine gold is hugely valued in India and a number of banks (e.g. www.icicibank.com) and large jewelry houses offer certified 24 carat gold coins (99.9 % purity). These sealed and well packaged gold coins could be an attractive product to include in a reward catalog.

2) There are a few branded jewelers who have established credibility in the market (Tanishq, Asmi & Gili). These retailers offer gift vouchers and certificates which can be included in the reward catalog.

Service Awards – Do they make business sense?

A few days back, I was presenting Rideau’s offerings to a prospective client – a very large company (about 25 years old) with over 100,000 employees globally. When we were talking about tenure based service awards, the client told me that they don’t do service awards as the management believed that no one should get recognized just for showing up – that was what their salary was meant for. My colleague, S. Max Brown, and I were taken aback as we fundamentally believed that service awards were the quintessential foundation block for a good recognition strategy in a company. I have been reflecting on this ever since with a view to create a compelling case for a service award program that can be sold to a very hard-nosed businessman.

My understanding of the way a number of global service award programs work is the following: The employee gets an e-mail congratulating him/her on completing 5/10/15 years with the company with a link to a catalog from where he/she can choose an award. In my opinion, running a service award program this way will probably not justify the investment a company makes in the program. Imagine that on your birthday, your mother or a loved one sends you an e-mail wishing you a happy birthday with an online link for you to pick a gift from. Worse still, imagine if the e-mail came from an automated system that your mother has signed up for, to ensure that she does not forget anyone’s birthdays.

It is widely accepted that service awards are very powerful for the following reasons:
1) It has the potential to touch 100% of the employee population.
2) The criterion for the award/recognition is crystal clear and cannot be disputed at all. Plus the award has no chance of inducing feelings of jealousy among co-workers.

I fundamentally believe that an employee-employer relationship is special and important enough (simply because of the amount of active time an individual spends at work) that a tenure based milestone needs to be celebrated by the employee’s team the same way that a family celebrates an individual’s birthday. This does not mean spending loads of money on cakes and gifts, but simply allowing the employee to be in the spotlight on that occasion and using the service award presentation to create a setting and reason for the celebration.

In conclusion, if the delivery of the award is not done in a meaningful and memorable way for the employee and the audience (may just be the individual’s small work team), I don’t think spending money on service awards is wise – an automated e-card that costs nothing will do the same job.

Employee Engagement & Quality Control

I happened to visit a car manufacturing facility a few days ago. I walked through the floors of the assembly line passing by grumpy workers. I could almost see the following written on their faces “I hate this job and this company – but I need the money, and that is the one and only reason I am doing this.”

Accompanying me on this walk was the quality guru of the factory, and he was telling me about all their global quality certifications and the processes the company followed to ensure the cars rolling out of their assembly lines are of world class quality. When I glanced at one of the workers who was going about his work – mounting the tires on a car, I felt I heard the following “I am going to do as bad a job as I can afford to, without any risk to my job – so you better put in place quality controls and measures and whatever else is needed to cover the company”. If only they were thinking, “I am going to do the best job I can, knowing I can always rely on the tools available to me and the quality control measures the company has put in place to ensure any unintentional errors I make are identified and corrected before the car moves to the next stage in the assembly line.”

What would it take for the company to move from the existing scenario to the new scenario I had described? “Higher Employee Engagement” is the silver bullet – but unfortunately, that is not something available off-the-shelf. A great reward and recognition program encompasses “Day-to-Day” recognition, informal recognition and formal recognition programs. This could prove to be a very cost effective solution in driving up employee engagement levels, especially for a large workforce doing repetitive jobs.

Bollywood and Employee Recognition

There was an article in the Economic Times not too long ago about how training managers in Indian corporates were incorporating clips from Bollywood movies into their training programs to make the programs more engaging and enjoyable - Shah Rukh’s speech to the team in “Chak De India" as an example of motivational speeches, Aamir’s comments in “3 Idiots" on how professors need to teach, or the power of team work and the impact on the team of an individual moving in a different direction in “Lagaan."

I recollect a scene from Munnabhai MBBS – where Sanjay Dutt or Munnabhai talks about the power of “Pyaar Ki Jappi” (“Hug of Love”) and demonstrates its power by hugging an old worker (a floor cleaner) and thanking him for cleaning the hospital floor for the last 30 years or so. Relating this to the contents of the CRP (Certified Recognition Professional) course, I had recently taken, I wondered about the positive impact “Day-to-Day” recognition could have on an organization. This old worker is clearly at the bottom of the corporate pyramid at the hospital and can be replaced easily with another worker, but the work he does is quite valuable in the true business sense – which patient would choose to get treated in a hospital which can’t even manage to keep its floors clean. If the worker’s manager or better still, one of the senior doctors, chats with him for a few seconds while passing him, tells him the work he does is very valuable to and explains why, I bet the floor will be sparkling clean for the next few weeks at least.

Employee Recognition in India

Ask any professionally run company in India if they have an employee recognition program in place and the answer will be “YES.” Dig a little deeper and more often than not, you will find that most programs are managed in an ad-hoc manner with very little thought process that has gone into it. It gets even worse if you start asking questions about ROI (Return on Investment), Recognition Strategy and Management Commitment to the program.

I personally believe that “Employee Recognition” can be a very powerful tool in the arsenal of business leaders and HR professionals to drive up employee engagement, which in turn, as has been proven over and over again, drives better business performance & customer satisfaction.

To compare this philosophy with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, employers typically do a great job in taking care of the employee’s PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS (Compensation & Benefits) – Level 1, and SAFETY NEEDS (work-place, medical facilities, housing etc.) – Level 2. The individual’s SOCIAL NEEDS – Level 3, are fulfilled by becoming a part of a group of colleagues at work or by their strong family set-up outside of work. Post this, the fourth and the fifth needs (ESTEEM and SELF-ACTUALIZATION), tend to be clubbed in a majority of organizations i.e. the same employees who are valued and recognized are the ones who are promoted and grow up the corporate ladder. So employees tend to stay at level 3 (SOCIAL needs fulfilled) or move 2 steps ahead (SELF-ACTUALIZED). Are companies missing a trick in the book by not having a larger pool of employees at level 4 (ESTEEM needs fulfilled)? Logically, shouldn’t there be a larger number of employees with fulfilled esteem needs than those who are self actualized? Won’t employees be happier and more engaged if their chances of moving up the hierarchy of needs are higher?

A robust employee recognition program that is directly linked to the company’s vision, mission & values, and has the commitment of management, can effectively move a larger number of employees to level 4 (ESTEEM) and motivate a larger number of employees at level 3 to work harder, given that they now have a more realistic chance of moving to level 4.

The topics I hope to cover in this blog will centre around this philosophy and belief in the art & science of employee recognition as it applies to organizations in India and the surrounding regions. I will look forward to your participation.

Global Recognition

In the last 12 years, I have had the luxury of working in, and traveling to multiple countries, helping companies establish and manage their operations outside of their base locations. In this blog, I hope to share my practical insights in the area of Employee Recognition & Rewards, as it applies to various countries globally, starting with India – my current location. I have also initiated my research on identifying & documenting recognition practices in different countries in the field of Rewards & Recognition and hope to share my learnings as I go along.