Do High Expectations and Rewards Drive Better Performance?

Does setting high expectations encourage people to succeed? And can a simple reward system actually change behavior?

Recently, I was sitting across from an employee who was wearing a paper sticker that said “45 Days Accident Free.”

I asked her, “Do you get a reward at some point for going accident free?”

She explained that employees get a barbecue after reaching a certain number of accident-free days, and at a much bigger milestone—perhaps six months or a year—there is a financial bonus.

It was a simple sticker, but it got me thinking.

The company wasn’t just telling employees, “Be safe.” They were measuring safety, making progress visible, celebrating milestones, and giving employees something to work toward.

Could the Same Idea Reduce Business Mistakes?

Around the same time, I spoke with a small business struggling with shipping errors.

Their error rate is over 10%. Orders are going out with the wrong size, the wrong product, or even to the wrong address.

Those mistakes aren’t free.

A shipping error can mean paying for return shipping, sending a replacement, losing the original product, spending staff time fixing the problem, and potentially losing a customer. A single mistake can easily cost a business $100 or more.

That made me wonder: Could an incentive system work for accuracy just as it does for workplace safety or sales?

Instead of accepting a 10% error rate as part of doing business, what if the company established a goal of zero shipping errors?

Maybe the incentive is:

90 days without a shipping error = $100 bonus.

Or perhaps there are smaller milestones along the way, with a larger reward for six months of exceptional accuracy.

The exact dollar amount isn’t really the point. The bigger question is whether creating a clear goal and rewarding progress could encourage employees to develop better systems.

Is Zero Errors an Unrealistic Goal?

Some people might immediately say that zero errors is too high of an expectation.

Maybe.

But there is a difference between saying “You will be punished if you make one mistake” and saying “Our goal is zero errors, and we’re going to work together to figure out how to get as close to that as possible.”

A zero-error goal forces a business to ask better questions.

Why are we making mistakes?

Do we need a checklist before a package leaves?

Should one employee pack the order and another verify it?

Would scanning barcodes help?

Are addresses being copied manually when they could be imported automatically?

Are employees rushed?

Is the workspace organized so similar products or sizes aren’t easily confused?

When employees are given ownership of the goal, they may be the best people to develop the solution. They’re the ones doing the work every day.

Rewards Alone Aren’t the Answer

Reward systems have a long history in sales. Sell a certain amount and earn a commission. Reach a sales goal and receive a bonus. Businesses understand that incentives can influence behavior.

But incentives can also be used for goals other than revenue—safety, quality, accuracy, customer service, productivity, and efficiency.

The important part is making sure the incentive encourages the right behavior.

You don’t want employees hiding mistakes because reporting one means losing everyone’s bonus. You don’t want people rushing inspections to hit a productivity goal. And you don’t want an incentive program that makes employees afraid to admit when something went wrong.

The goal should be improvement, not fear.

A good system rewards both results and the behaviors that produce those results: checking your work, reporting problems, improving processes, helping coworkers, and identifying potential errors before they reach the customer.

What Does a 10% Error Rate Really Cost?

This is where the conversation becomes particularly interesting for a small business.

Imagine shipping 500 orders a year with a 10% error rate.

That’s 50 incorrect orders.

If each mistake costs an average of $100 to correct, that’s approximately $5,000 a year—before considering lost customers, negative reviews, or staff time spent dealing with unhappy customers.

Now imagine offering an employee a $100 bonus every 90 days for meeting a clearly defined accuracy goal.

Even four $100 bonuses during the year would cost just $400.

If the incentive and improved systems prevented even a handful of $100 mistakes, the program could potentially pay for itself.

Expectations Tell People What Matters

Perhaps the most important lesson isn’t really about the $100 bonus.

It’s about expectations.

If management treats a 10% error rate as normal, employees are likely to see it as normal too.

If management says, “We believe we can do better, and we’d like you to help us figure out how,” the conversation changes.

Measure the problem. Set the expectation. Give employees the authority to improve the process. Track progress. Celebrate milestones. Reward meaningful improvement.

And when a mistake happens, don’t simply ask, “Who did this?”

Ask, “What allowed this to happen, and what can we change so it doesn’t happen again?”

Maybe zero errors isn’t always achievable.

But setting the bar high, involving employees in creating better systems, and rewarding measurable improvement might get a business much closer to zero than simply accepting that mistakes are part of the job.

And sometimes a little paper sticker that says “45 Days Accident Free” is doing far more than we realize.