Barcelona and Real Madrid are dominant forces in world soccer as well as domestically in Spain, but what role does reward management play in their success and what can organizations learn from their successful team reward strategies? With organizations increasingly utilizing team work in order to increase company performance and competitive advantage there are some key lessons that they can learn from two of the most successful teams in world sport today.
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Key Topics: Team performance; Pay-for-performance; Pay dispersion, Merit pay; Bonuses

The importance of HR practices in directing employee behavior is in little doubt, however employees’ perceptions of HR practices, such as pay for performance, can often differ considerably, making it difficult for companies to predict how they will influence behavior. Examining the variability in employees’ perceptions of HR practices, a study of employees in the Insurance and Public sectors found that employees’ perceptions of HR practices were closely related to managers’ and coworkers’ perceptions of HR practices, with those more demographically similar to employees having the greatest influence over their perceptions of HR practices.

Key Topics: Perceptions of HR practices; Demographic similarity

​Companies have more tools at their disposal now than ever before to elicit improved employee performance, but are the basics of meaningful work being forgotten? A study of Chinese administrative workers sought to examine the importance of job meaningfulness to workers, as well as both financial and recognition incentives on employee performance. All three factors were found to positively impact performance, with meaning found to be most significant in eliciting the greatest performance gains. These factors were also found to interact with each other in interesting ways.
 
Key Topics: Job meaning; Financial rewards; Recognition; Employee performance

With companies constantly striving for competitive advantage, continued innovation is central to the success of many companies. A Chinese study examined innovative employee behavior across multiple industries and the role of contextual and dispositional factors in this behavior. The study found that innovation job requirements and employee intrinsic interest in innovation had a significant impact on employee innovative behavior, and furthermore that reward could play an important role in eliciting innovative behavior.

Key Topics: Perceived innovation job requirement; Innovative behavior; Intrinsic interest in innovation; Rewards

​Do employees really care about what their peers earn? A German study examined the effect of the compensation level of comparable peers on the job satisfaction of managers in the chemicals industry over a five-year period and found that their job satisfaction levels were indeed affected by peer compensation, both in their own company and in the industry more broadly. The effects were found to differ across a number of key criteria, including gender and age. 

Key Topics: Social comparison; Job satisfaction; Compensation; Benchmarking