Employee of the Month Program

MEssig

Our store manager (who has only been a manager for five months) is insisting that we start an employee of the month program. I have worked with similar programs for different employers and in my experience, this program can be fraught with problems (favoritism, no one wants to oversee it, lack of enthusiasm, etc..) Realizing that I can be stubborn OCCASIONALLY, I thought I would gather input from all of you. I have been with this company for a short period of time (less than two years) and we are transitioning into a more professional work force. In the meantime, we still have managers who do not support each others' decisions, and I am afraid this program will actually become demoralizing under these circumstances. Any ideas - stories I can relay to our CEO?

Gillian

Some years ago I had a client with such a program. Each month the VP of Manufacturing and the Production Manager would "pick" the winner. That, of course, led to a lot of conversation criticizing the process and the winner. The employees were right - the favorites "won" on a fairly regular basis and those who were good employees but for some reason weren't liked as well never won. If this type of program is going to work there has to be some sort of independent review or participation that is trusted by the employees as truly independent.