We get some rules to follow, that and this, these and those - no one knows (Queens Of The Stone Age)

The book I'm reading (Evidence-Based Reward Management) poses some interesting and pertinent questions.

Before I get to them - they make the point that:

The tendency is for organizations to ignore research evidence and base their HR and reward policies on generalized 'truths' that have little foundation in that evidence.

That would certainly be my experience thus far. I have seen or heard no research based evidence advocating a reward policy, nor have I seen or heard any rationalisations about why we need one.

Some of those questions:

• How effective will the performance related incentive scheme be?
• Will it add value?
• What would happen if we swapped from an individual incentive scheme to a team emphasis?
• How do rewards affect the levels of engagement and performance of the employees?
• In fact, do we have any evidence whatsoever that our pay and reward arrangements make any difference?

That last one's a doozy isn't it?

Ehrenberg (1990) answers this when he says, 'There is very little empirical evidence on whether compensation policies have their intended effects either at the individual or corporate level.'

Food for thought surely...

I'm one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind (Dylan)

Evidence based management is what we are about in our local work in the sandpit.

In a nutshell this means asking two essential questions: What is it you think you know? How do you know it?

I like evidence based management and I like these questions.
They get to the heart of the matter. They question assumptions.

Frinstance - I am an advisor for Arabic (as well as being the Lead Advisor) in my school and I know that, compared to other boys in Al Ain, our boys struggle with reading and are excellent at writing. I can prove it by comparing exam results. Evidence. Powerful stuff.

It means we can put some things in place to improve the boys' reading. And when I say 'we' I mean the Arabic teachers who are uniformly terrific.

I am reading a really interesting book at the moment, Evidence-Based Reward Management by three UK business writers.

The following statement of purpose jumped out at me:

[Reward management] is also about helping to create a climate of trust between management and employees in which the former recognize that they must apply the principles of both distributive and procedural justice and the latter believe that the management will act fairly in 'delivering the deal' as evidenced by what they do and how they do it.

As I gear up for having an incentive scheme done to me, I thought this was quite pertinent.

It's an excellent book - all that and I'm only up to page 14!