TEDRESYS: The Team Driven Reward System

Tedresys Reward System

Can we rethink, potentially at the least, the organizational reward systems and programs? This has primarily been a wish and a desire. But, I haven't let it stop there. I am in the process of designing this system. Here, I would like to put across the foundation and the skeleton of the system. The application of Tedresys, a Team Driven Reward System, may appear suitable for Software Products and Services Organizations only. However, Tedresys may potentially be applied to other types of organizations, wherever it is practical. Tedresys will evolve to a certain extent, I anticipate, and I will add more details to it, eventually.

The Essence of Tedresys: The Fundamental Principles

■ There are no self-nominations

■ There are only team nominations: It's the team that nominates

■ Scope of the reward program: A project team
■ Wherever practical, this reward program may be applied to a bigger scope

■ Frequency of the reward: Once in a financial year

■ Reward hosted by: The leader of the team
■ The leader should be the one who is 'the leader' in the minds of the members
■ The leader could be a Manager|Scrum Master|Tech. Lead|Architect|...

■ The host, the leader, of course is a part of the team

■ The host participates in the nomination process
■ Nominees, the potential winners, participate in nomination and selection

■ The selection for the reward is done by the team

■ There is no external influence either in the nomination or the selection process

■ The host participates in the selection process

■ The decision of the team on selection is final

■ The selection is not finalized unless an absolute agreement is arrived at

■ The criteria for nomination and selection are predefined and published

■ The criteria for nomination and selection are stringent and not easy
■ Potentially, the criteria are aligned with the reward criteria in the organization

■ Reward none if the nomination or selection criteria are not met

■ By all means, the grandeur and the status attached to the reward is protected

■ The bar can only go up and it can never be lowered

■ Receiving the reward should be a matter of absolute pride for the team members

■ The reward system is based on peer evaluation, acceptance and recognition
■ Timed to feed the other reward programs in the organization
■ Timed to potentially feed the performance appraisal process for the team
■ Form of the reward: A digital certificate signed by the leader
■ The certificate gets posted on the public Wall of Fame Blog | Website of the leader
■ Intellectual Property: The details of the work and project are not posted
■ A picture of the winner | recipient is posted along with the certificate
■ The certificate so posted stays on the Wall of Fame and never gets removed
■ The link to the certificate Wall of Fame page is shared with the recipient
■ The link is used on the recipients' Blog, Website, Social and Professional Networks

What does Tedresys potentially lead to?

■ A truly transparent reward system
■ Establishing transparency and trust within a project team
■ Significantly more matured conversations among the team members
■ Significantly more mutual respect for each other
■ A significantly greater connect between the team members
■ A much greater awareness of who is doing what in the team
■ A team working on identifying a winner and facilitating that
■ The team wins by doing a great job at identifying the most deserving winner
■ Establishes a culture of peer evaluation, acceptance, appreciation and recognition
■ Builds a strong self organizing, self motivated and autonomous team
■ Provides readiness for nominations into other organizational reward programs
■ The reward gets a wider and long-term publicity on the public domain Wall of Fame
■ Provides very valuable inputs and insights for performance appraisal

The Reward Categories

■ The Craftsmanship Champion

■ The Innovation Champion

■ The Leadership Champion

■ The Delivery Champion

Why these Reward Categories?

■ I personally believe that a team can achieve great success if it could do great in these four areas: Craftsmanship (Quality and Processes), Innovation (Making Better Things and Making Things Better), Leadership (In the true sense of the term in all the aspects of the team) and Delivery Excellence.
■ These four categories of reward, I strongly believe, address most of the personality types available on a team, and do cater to the spectrum of personal traits, attributes and strengths typically available in a team.

What would be a good platform to host the rewards?

It is more or less a matter of choice, practicality, effectiveness and fitness for the purpose. In my case, if I assume that I am the leader hosting the rewards, I would use one of my blogs that has got a sufficiently large number of views from different geographies including India, United States, Russia, Germany, France, China, United Kingdom, Ukraine, Australia, Vietnam!