Answer the question for this case study.

Think fun, think Yahoo!

"We make it our business to have fun at work every day," says Jessie Lim, HR Director Southeast Asia, Yahoo! In an organisation whose very name exudes fun, its corporate culture is no different. Fun and innovation are built into the fabric of every 'Yahoo's uniform'.

Stars in the making

Yahoo! offers opportunities for cross-functional/departmental networking. One such program the Singapore office launched within Southeast Asia is 'SEA Innovation Day', modelled on the corporate office's Yahoo! Hack Days' whereby teams of cross-functional members take a Yahoo! product and 'hack' it for the better. They have six months to work in teams of four on a specific Yahoo! product and at the end of six months, the winning team wins $5,000 plus resources internally to bring their idea to fruition.

Yahoo! also has a robust learning and development strategy in place to instil leadership readiness within the entire Yahoo! family. 'Leading Yahoos' and 'Managing Yahoos' are two examples of leadership and management development programmes. 'Leading Yahoos' is targeted at leaders, managers and individual contributors in the organisation. It is intended to create alignment across cascading business goals and build accountability for organisational performance and business results. The programme includes content on expectations through Yahoo!'s leadership standards, understanding company/functional goals and metrics and 360 degree insights into defining strengths, development areas and leadership development plans.

'Managing Yahoos' is targeted at new and newfy-promoted managers and is designed to support the transition of employees into managerial roles. The programme content includes effective decision making, hiring skills, coaching and influence as well as an introduction to leadership standards.

Yahoo! has also seen a breakthrough this year in its investments in emerging talents within Southeast Asia. "This group of high-energy talents are singled out and assimilated into a high potential program which we have lined up for them," Lim explains. "They will go through an intensive one-year program which will expose them to multiple facets of the business beyond their scope, and at the same time, prepare them for future roles."

Recognising stars

Besides the usual monetary rewards which Yahoo! provides annually and quarterly, HR found that specific and public accolades work best in recognising employees, especially in Southeast Asia. "We have a local recognition program called 'Caught Purple Handed' whereby anyone within Southeast Asia can give out purple hands to someone who's done a great job big or small and it's accompanied by a small

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token of appreciation," Lim says. "In the past, we're given out cinema tickets, coffee vouchers and internal Yahoo! swags."

For group recognition awards within the region, Yahoo! launched 'Super Heroes' in the first quarter of this year. This quarterly reward program pitches the best team projects against each other and is open to all staff in Southeast Asia. Each voter is given one vote and nominated teams go all out to rally for votes. The winning team gets a cash prize of $5,000 at the end of the quarter.

Question

Discuss the possible options Yahoo! has in rewarding staff and highlight its pros and cons of 3 different reward types/systems.

(20 marks)