Expected rewards reduce motivation on a task. Surprise rewards increase motivation on the same task. Fixed rewards are less powerful than performance-based rewards, even with creative tasks. - Zach Hamed

Why is it relevant to Hospitality & Service Industries?

Typically you would use this for team members/employees and some actionable insights are mentioned below. But I invite you to use this to think of customer/guest behaviour too.  

Our job as hospitality leaders and managers is to make sure that we design our services in a manner that produces the greatest amount of value or joy for our guests.  The ideal would be to design services and processes that bring joy to both, the guests and the team.

Actionable Insights

Rewards are used to create the desired behaviour. We train the mind to do something because there are rewards attached to the activity and a positive outcome. There is a whole lot of information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation.

Let's break the insight down to smaller learnings:

Expected rewards reduce motivation on a task.

If you know you will only get X, to do Y, you may not want to do it. Since you know what the X is. Of course, this will not hold true, if what is expected is equal to or greater than what you want for that task.

Surprise rewards increase motivation on the same task.

When the surprise is revealed, it must be equal to or more than the value of the expected reward.

Fixed rewards are less powerful than performance-based rewards, even with creative tasks.

This makes intuitive sense. If everyone just gets the same reward, irrespective of effort or outcome, then the incentive to do more is taken away.

Real-World Example

Let's try and run 3 examples. 

Example 1 - Only For Guest Behaviour

The most simple, yet amazingly effective use of this insight, is the Happy Meal @ McDonald's.

“Few things are more iconic in American kid culture than the garishly decorated McDonald's Happy Meal box. Who among us can’t remember whining to their parents for a cheeseburger when all we really wanted was the latest Barbie figurine, Hot Wheels car, or cheap movie tie-in tchotchke?”– Kayla Webley

It is the perfect combination of expected & surprise reward. The child knows they will get a toy (expected), while which toy on that day and visit is the surprise.

Example 2 - For Your Team

Most organisations celebrate employee birthdays. Most also run 'employee-of-the-month type programs. In both these cases, the rewards are known and hence not really a surprise.

Imagine a different reality. Let's say it's your birthday and the HR team (or interdepartmental, which we suggest) gives you 4 boxes to choose from. Each box has a different gift so to speak, but all are similar in value. You don't have to get a cake or a voucher, you may get free tickets to a movie, a free phone recharge or even a gift card etc. You wouldn't know what yo