Even in lean times it is very important to reward the top performing employees to ensure that they stay in the organization. The medical service professionals who are excellent in their field are very important for the nonprofit organization and that is why they are paid heavily. In my opinion, financial reward is very important for the employees with good performance reviews to retain them in the organization. The employees would not get enough motivation if the top performing and average employees are rewarded at the same level. Hence when the company considers the employees for reward, top performing employees should be rewarded slightly higher than the average performers. As the company is passing through a lean time, the employee support is very essential to overcome the situation. It is very difficult to achieve employee satisfaction without rewarding financially and you would have understood this fact very well in your 28 years career. Hence as the Chairman of the nonprofit organization, you should approve financially rewarding the employees within the budget but should consider rewarding according to performance other than providing the same percentage to all with good reviews.
References:
Milkovich, G., Newman, J. (2016). Compensation (12th ed). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
?Teachers Question
What would you look at when considering rewarding employees? Do you think that keeping your job adequate reward for good performance during these lean times?