Posted: February 25th, 2025

Study into Reward Systems and Their Effect on Employee Motivation

Research the role of total rewards in driving employee satisfaction and engagement at ASDA, exploring both monetary and non-monetary incentives | Discuss how ASDA’s incentive programs influence employee behavior, motivation, and long-term retention through structured reward mechanisms.

As one of the basic components of a performance management system, a reward system is a basic term and can be referred in broad to encapsulate every organizational component that is associated and related to rewards like people, processes, rules, regulations, processes and decision making processes that are involved in distributing and allocating the benefits and remuneration among employees in return for the contribution that have made to the organization in terms of the business achieved (Griffin and Moorhead, 2009).
The employees are thus motivated to gain satisfaction of their unsatisfied needs for which basic reason Employee motivation can be defined as Energy or willingness or the amount of effort the employee gives in order to achieve organizational goals and this phenomenon of the driving force of motivation is universal because it results owing to specific unsatisfied needs of the employee. The fundamental motivational activity includes four stages; a man has certain inclinations and preferences that he/she needs to satisfy. If these wants and desires are not met, then that person is capable of some drive or motivation to carry out that objective (Gunkel, 2006).
In regard to these two main elements, the present study seeks to establish the true significance, and relevance, of how reward systems influence employee motivation. A study has been successful to prove that the level of rewards and intrinsic motivation is directly related, the higher the reward, the more will be the extrinsic motivation (Ryan and Deci, 1985). Similarly a study was conducted which tried to explore the association of rewards and employee motivation and stated that there exists a statistically significant effect of pay, promotion, reward, benefits on employee motivation (Khan, Farooq, and Imran Ullah, 2010). Same is made by Roberts (2005) his study indicates that better the systems of reward and recognition lead to higher levels of motivation and satisfaction in employees and therefore may generate higher levels of performance and productivity.
Diverse earlier studies revealed these facts so they signify the significance to establish the association of reward systems with employee motivation and motivation influence on logical thinking of the employees and thus it's going to have grave consequences on the organization. This study is to see relationship in a company specific scenario as ASDA and to see how the total reward strategy has an affect on the employee motivation level in that particular company.
Problem Statement
Thus, it is both timely and relevant since this issue in any organization is such that employees remain the valuable resource for any organization and these rewards directly affect them. Motivation is an abstract and conceptual term and is associated with human action whereas reward systems are factual and detail so relating one abstract idea to one factual term is not an easy task.
From the area of human behavior, the issue of motivation and rewards is another way of looking at the problem as its problem as its problem existed and will also probably continue in the future due to the fact that human behavior will most likely remain the same and employees will bring their behaviors to the work place as well (Obayuwana, 2019). Hence the products of this study will be functionally significant in streamlining reward mechanisms of future. Behavior, human behavior, is either reinforced or discarded based upon the consequence(s) that action has generated. If anything good or satisfying happens to the person as a result of an action, it will be positive reinforcement and the person will try to engage in the behaviour again in the future. Conversely, negative reinforcement takes place if a behavior yields negative feedback. These principles can apply not only to the employees in a workplace, but also to what types of rewards can be seen as factors that act to ensure the reinforcement of a desired behavior, such as good performance (Wilson, 2003). Hence, the reward system is meant to maintain positive behaviors for the employees to reiterate these behaviors.
What then the problem to be solved by this research study is: Find, why do employees work and what are rewards offered to them. If the reward is something that doesn’t hold any value for the employee than it may not be sufficient to energize the employee. Likewise, the other issue which need to be resolved is that how the reward systems are constructed and exercised so that these manifest themselves as positive outcomes of exhibiting the apt conduct in this situation is good performance and strengthening this outcome which results in the motivation amongst employees.
The broad objective of this research paper is to explore what are the factors that influence employee to work and how these factors can be integrated in a reward system and what is the effect of these rewards in the motivation of the employee. The research will revolve around various factors associated with employee motivation in relation to the case study of Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Limited (ASDA). The basic outline of the study is that ASDA employees will be asked to complete questionaries' through which their motivation will be assessed regarding the total reward system that is being offered to them.
Introduction to the Company
ASDA was founded in Britain in 1949 as Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Limited and has since grown into a supermarket chain. Its product line started with grocery and general merchandise, but the market was diversified over the years and ASDA also ventured into the financial services segment. It is one of the most successful businesses and because of its progress, Wal-Mart decided to buy ASDA and run it as its subsidiary in the year 1999. It has been an innovative businesses as it brought different store formats into the British market such as one stop shopping superstores during 1970’s, introduction of supermarket owned brand and then finally ventured into financial services business as well. In order to service this portfolio, a lot of employees that each specialize in their own area of expertise, and currently the company has 170,000[1] colleagues distributed over 400 stores.
ASDA is among the largest retailing chains in UK along with few other notable names such as Tesco and Sainsbury. ASDA has over 1000 employees who manage and run its stores across the country. ASDA is also having Total Reward that includes various components such as Bonuses, Colleague Discounts, Private Medical Cover, Share Plans and share save Plans, STAR Points, Colleague Share Ownership Plan, Pension, Voluntary Benefits, ASDA Stars, Long Service and employee recognition[2]. It has been shown in reports that ASDA likely has expansion plans in the pipeline with the acquisition of Netto stores in the UK[3], which will enable ASDA to massively increase the number of stores and employees.
It difficult to develop a reward system at ASDA and that generates the motivation to all or most of the employees. There is an urgent need to analyze the perception of the employees about the total reward system of ASDA and what are the shortcomings in the system. Moreover ASDA is a huge supermarket chain working the length and breadth of the country having a large number of employees and plans of further expansion makes it the tempting option to be assessed in this study.
Aims of the Study
The task of designing and implementing reward mechanisms is among the principal functions of the human resources management department. They are a common way to provide something back to employees for the effort they put in and also as a form of recognition for employees. These rewards can be monetary and non monetary. Monetary rewards are definitely the first thing that comes to mind when one think rewards but these are not always the best and include things like basic salary, bonus etc. On the contrary monetary incentives can be described in the forms of deductions related to career incentives or intrinsic rewards where it includes promotions, holiday trips etc (Christiansen, 2000). ObjectivesBased on this, the objectives of the current study are:
Understand reward systems that influences the executives motivation
Diving into the primary components of the total rewards system
Types and Components of Motivation
Objectives of the Study
Reward system is composed of policies, practices, structures, schemes and procedures (Armstrong, 2002) and the objective of this paper is to investigate these processes is ASDA and whether job evaluation and performance management, practices are used for motivation of the employees through the use of reward systems. The aims of the study are:
What are the reward systems in place?
How have such reward systems been established, and how are these systems maintained and regularly updated?
Is the worker aware of these reward systems well enough in order to appreciate these?
Are the employees satisfy this reward system is efficient for their needs and requirements?
How motivated and satisfied ASDA employees are in jobs?
Are the employees feeling the appraisal process is Just, equitable and fair?
Do reward systems discriminate employees on some grounds including gender and age etc?
Do the reward systems speak to items that encourage or discourage the employee?
What are the gaps between what the employees are looking for and what the incentive system is providing?
Results Expected
Hence, the outcome from this study is going to be a compilpark our of factors that act as motivators and de motivators for the employees and what they are expecting from the reward system. Through this process, one can recognize what are the primary drivers impacting employee motivation. It will also identify ASDA reward system and the extent to which ASDA reward structure meets the employeea ’s needs and the missing factors in the current system. The comparison will ultimately highlight which elements should be included in the reward systems to ensure effective motivation of employees.
Conceptual Framework
The study will be based on primary data which will be collected through questionnaires filled in by the employees of the company. The questionnaire is an attempt to understand the key building blocks of reward system of ASDA, how far this system is developed keeping the needs of employees and the organization in estimation and its relation to extrinsic and intrinsic motivation among the employees. The following few paragraphs discuss a short description of these three themes.
. Policies, practices, structures, schemes and procedures are relevant to any reward system contents (Armstrong, 2002). Processes are created for measuring the values of the job and the contributions of the employee, which may include both job evaluation and performance management, practices are used which motivate employees by using reward systems to create motivation, structures link the values of the two, giving benefits on the basis of the amount of your work, schemes are used, so that incentives can be given based on the performance and procedures are the ones used to keep the system running properly and in terms of efficient working. Likewise, ASDA's total reward system will be analyzed to see how well it can track employees.
While designing a reward strategy, the 직원 ( employee ) is always kept in mind but in that, the needs and requirement of the organization is also taken into consideration. Griffin and Moorehead (2009) state that, rewards have symbolic as well as surface value for the employees. This is the rational value as the rewards provides and can be quantified that is the same as a 20% increase in pay. On the other hand there means single award also carries some symbolic or subjective meaning which provide some personal value to the employee as example works that help the employee to understand that he is worth more than the others. This study will help to understand the success of the reward system framework at ASDA and how it caters to the needs and ambitions of employees.
Motivation can be internal or external, so it can mean one thing to one person and another to another person. Extrinsic Motivation deals with the motivation to accomplish an action or task based on the contingent results of said action or the positive consequences that that action produces while Intrinsic Motivation is a motivation to do something on the basis of the tasks own enjoyment and interest (Ryan and Deci, 2004). Intrinsic motivation is made up of elements like job satisfaction, personal goals being met, conformity to standards, fairness, team spirit and ethical standards et cetera (Frey and Osterloh, 2002). The ordinary investigation will endeavor to reveal the best way in which the aggregate reward framework in ASDA with the execution of both the intrinsic and outer segments.
Overview of Later Chapters
News articles published as research material for academic study are aspects that will be discussed in the literature review that will build a foundation for this research study through previously carried out studies, and to show theoretical themes used that would be relevant to this study. The following chapter will elaborate on the methodology to be used for designing and completing the questionnaires for data collections needed for the research. The upcoming chapter will therefore necessarily be focused upon more specific concerns and outline the extant rewards system in ASDA, whereas the following section will adopt a more critical approach to analyze and evaluate the system. Data Analysis will be presented in a separate chapter after the analysis and the last chapter of the research will contain summary and conclusion of the whole research study.

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