April 1999
Lessons Learned from Awards Study
An Office of Personnel Management study of Federal awards
programs provides useful information about how well these programs
are administered and how they are perceived by employees. It also
includes recommendations for improvement. The study summarizes the
results of a 2-year review of awards programs in 15 Federal agencies.
Findings. The study surfaced many
positive findings about awards programs, including:
- awards distributions show no evidence of
inequities based on race, sex, national origin, or other
non-merit factors; and
- intentional abuse of the awards authority is rare.
But some shortcomings emerged as well:
- large segments of the workforce do not have
confidence in awards programs;
- awards programs suffer from inconsistencies in funding and
funding practices; and
- agencies appear to pay little attention to monitoring and
evaluating awards program results.
Employee Preferences. Although
the study found mixed employee opinions about awards programs, it
also found notable agreement on what employees do like, such as:
- peer involvement in designing and evaluating
awards programs,nominating individuals for awards, reviewing nominations, and
recommending award amounts;
- special act and on-the-spot awards because they are more
timely and are not based on appraisal ratings that have low
credibility;
- group/team awards where the predominant mode of getting the
work done is through formal and informal teams;
- standard formulas for determining awards budgets and
individual award amounts;
- prestigious honorary awards to recognize extraordinary
professional or personal efforts that best represent the
organization's values and reflect great credit on the
organization, its mission, and its workforce; and
- public recognition to demonstrate management's support and
confidence in the validity of the awards decisions and to
reassure everyone that deserving employees will be rewarded
for high performance.
Recommendations. This study
recommends strategies for improving awards programs:
- Link performance recognition programs
and decisions to strategic plans, goals, and results.
- Establish balanced, flexible recognition programs that
feature a variety of group and individual awards, rather than
focusing on one or two types of awards.
- Consider making more use of competitive and prestigious
nonmonetary (honorary) awards, with provisions for peer nomination
and peer involvement in deciding award recipients.
- Improve publicity about individual award recipients and
awards program activity.
- Publish and disseminate to all organization levels annual
awards policies, expectations, and funding guidance for the year
as soon as practicable at the beginning of each fiscal year.
- Consider employee concerns—including inconsistency in
distribution, non-credible bases for awards, and awards given
unfairly —when developing policies related to award practices and
funding.
- Establish accountability systems to monitor adherence to
awards policies and expectations, to spot problem trends, and
to identify opportunities for program improvement.
Conclusion. Good lessons are
available in this study for anyone managing awards programs.
In order to improve these programs, the study encourages agencies
to more systematically monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of
awards programs and policies.
More information. A full copy of
the study is available on OPM's web site at
http://www.opm.gov/omsoe/studies.
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