In 2015 researchers based at the University of Sydney and Western Sydney University in Australia, in collaboration with researchers at Leicester University in England, discovered that rewarding team performance delivers better outcomes than individual bonus rewards. The researchers found that ‘poor performers may not be free riders or shirkers but may be essential to the effective functioning of the group. We call them self‐sacrificers and believe their role is underappreciated and misunderstood’ and that they also ‘play an important role in boosting the performance of others’. You have probably run across such people in your own work groups, the nice guy who helps everyone else but whose own work may suffer. If they get sacked the group falls apart. These people don’t seem to have attracted much research attention in real groups, but they should. It was found that this group is critical for creating the environment in which high‐performing individuals can operate.

The researchers used biological theories to understand group versus individual selection, notably drawn from experiments to improve breeds of egg‐laying hens. Traditionally the best egg‐laying hens were used to create breeds of hens that increased egg production but produced a hostile environment of ‘mean bad birds’. Taking an alternative approach William Muir bred whole groups of hens taken from the top laying cages. In response ‘kind friendly chickens’ were able to produce higher quality eggs.

The UK and Australian researchers describe how they ‘applied these ideas to work groups by building computer models that allowed us to consider all types of group situations’. By using over 14 000 computer‐game simulations that mimicked diverse group settings, the researchers were able to assess individual and group rewards dynamics. The researchers concluded that ‘Group rewards generate the top‐performing individuals because of supportive group ecology, a mix of strategies that supports and sustains them. Individual rewards produce non‐cooperative groups of individuals bent on exploiting each other. No strategy, like tit‐for‐tat dominates, and different mixes of strategies can emerge to support high performing groups’.

Reporting in Business Insider Australia, John Ryan, CEO of the prestigious US‐based Center for the Creative Leadership, discusses how group success has more meaning than individual accomplishments and creates trust and positive group cultures.40 In this environment Monica Patrick identifies the advantages of group performance rewards; they improve morale, increase communication, provide a more focused vision, enable individual improvement and better relationships. She explains, in particular, how everyone in the group improves, as top performers lend assistance to slower workers, helping them achieve the group goals.

One company in Australia that recognises the need to reward group work is Asciano. The company employs some 10 000 personnel across its Australian logistics, haulage and forestry operations and states in its employee benefits manual that ‘Through daily, monthly, quarterly and annual recognition, we want to create a culture where we are recognising those individuals and teams who consistently demonstrate our values and are pro‐actively contributing to building a more collaborative organisation’.

QUESTION

What kind of team rewards would improve team performance? How would these rewards provide the environment for top achievers to thrive?