Government changes in the past couple of years to the way universities are funded has forced the sector to adopt a radical approach to the bottom line, breaking tradition.
Many state-funded educational institutions are struggling to keep up with this step change, which requires an approach along the lines of the private business model.
For example, the need for a greater marketing presence requires an experienced marketer most likely to come from a private business background with the expectation of comparable conditions. This newly competitive 'marketplace' also impacts on staff recruitment, attrition and student recruitment. It presents a serious business challenge.
One area in which we must make significant moves to catch-up is in our approach to reward and recognition. It's obvious we need to widen our reward packages to recruit retain and motivate staff. However, the biggest shift needs to be in getting everyone on board with the new business goals, from all staff to student ambassadors - people who contribute to the running of the university in its entirety.
We teamed up with incentive and motivation agency AYMTM who helped us implement a programme whereby staff, who all jointly helped us achieve our goals as a university over the past 12 months were all equally rewarded - no matter what their role.
Aligning to goals
What we learnt is that the first step to achieving this is doing something that universities have never had to do in the past: getting all staff and key stakeholders (such as student ambassadors) aligned to very tangible and clearly understood goals.
If everyone knows what the target is they can work towards it. Our ideology is that if everyone can deliver to help achieve this goal, we can all celebrate together. This approach should not be consigned to the higher echelons of management, as may have previously been the case, but rather the same reward can and should be offered to all involved.
The next stage is how reward is delivered. What we learnt is that it's a significant mistake to include reward within payroll. Imagine the disappointment if the £500 you were promised turned out to be £290 after statutory deductions? Where's the incentive and motivation? It may have the reverse effect rather than be an incentive to continue to earn the reward. If reward goes through payroll there is too much uncertainty and we know, through experience, the incentive impact is heavily limited.
The answer is to implement a solution where recognition forms a greater part of the reward. In our case we issued branded vouchers so staff received what they were promised. They had branded wallets and every time they spent their reward they were reminded of the thank you and were not short changed in any way. The reward was clear and tangible. The psychological association of this approach has proven more successful than any other.
Our message to colleagues in the business of universities? Keep reward away from remuneration. Focus on recognition, open the incentives to all staff, create a communications platform where everyone can share in the excitement.
Ian Hodson is the reward and benefits manager of the University of Lincoln
