When Good Work Is Rewarded With More Work

I’ve often been told that if you want something done, you give it to a busy person to do. That might work in the short term but will quickly cause an imbalance in the workload. The risk is burning out your top performers. When you are good at something and show you are responsible, hard-working and a high achiever, the reward for great work is often...more work.

Managers might be viewing it differently. They might see it as giving their top employees more opportunities. The high achievers see it as poor performers getting away with less work. They feel they are being penalized for being good workers. This double bind can be a cause for friction yet is avoidable. 

I asked several learning and development leaders from some top companies to weigh in on how to more equitably reward great work.

Darek Lenart

Senior Vice President, People and Capability, North America Markets and Strategic Growth 

Mastercard 

“The nature of high achievers is pushing them to take one extra project or spend extra hours, which makes their managers comfortable with awarding them with more work. The path forward instead is to give them more exposure to senior leaders (e.g. one on ones with Board members) to fulfill their expectations for recognition and provide them with a platform to tell their success story.  

Another focus is to relentlessly help them create time for development.  Through pandemic times and increased workloads, one of the most critical pinpoints experienced, especially by the younger generation, was limited time for growth and development. High achievers strive to achieve on every front including their constant learning.”

Pamay Bassey

Chief Learning and Diversity Officer

The Kraft Heinz Company

“One way to reward great work and great employees is to give them opportunities to learn, grow and develop, and to work with their managers to make space and time for them to take advantage of those opportunities.”

Dean Griess

Director, Learning Delivery & Design

Charles Schwab 

“Within learning and development, it is important to find ways to manage workload while allowing for stretch assignments that may become passion projects. The primary elements that assist us are centralized intake and capacity planning (e.g. utilization tracking).  The centralized intake prevents “sidebar” requests from going directly to top performers, which can lead to burnout, and allow for equitable opportunities.  This can be rewarding for high achievers so they can grow with stretch assignments that can help them develop professionally.”

Laine Joelson Cohen

Director of Learning

Citi

“In order to make rewards impactful for your employees, it helps to know what is important to them.  Knowing what they value, where they are looking to grow and how they like to receive feedback, will enable you to provide meaningful recognition.  Having a stretch opportunity may be rewarding for one person, and another might want public recognition, whereas another would really appreciate a heartfelt note.  Knowing your employees is key.”

Faisal Pandit

President

Panasonic System Solutions Company of North America (PSSNA)

“Positive company culture is built on five key pillars: strong communication, inclusion across the organization, opportunities for professional development, empathy and autonomy at all levels so individuals can feel ownership of the function or business for which they are responsible. These pillars establish a strong foundation to reward great work and drive employee engagement. Recognition and appreciation appeal to a fundamental human need, so rewarding and recognizing employees for achieving standout results will motivate other team members and boost morale. Anything from expressing thanks, awarding good work, or offering a meaningful experience tailored to their interests will go a long way in building an authentic connection and sense of community over time. This ultimately creates behaviors and a mindset that are intrinsically motivating, driving unparalleled energy and momentum to move things forward.”

As I previously shared in Forbes, there is a strategy to attract, retain, and lead high achievers. Appropriately rewarding good work and a fair distribution of the work is a critical first step.