Contrary to popular perception, rewarding people individually from a crowd does have its benefits. Companies expect individual employees to continue working effectively for the team’s overall rewards, yet this goes against the very principle of management which says that people work better when there are chances of reward. So lots of companies set up group reward schemes yet mostly they backfired as was the notable case of Levi’s. It ended at Levi’s with poor performers hiding under the work of the best ones who started quitting as now they came under greater pressure without commensurate rewards. Individual reward schemes work well because first of all the person recognized feels better motivated. According tomanagement consulting publication the BRH, recognition spillover effect leads to others craving to be at that position and so they start performing better as well. Team leaders must use extremely objective metrics to deduce results and need to not wait for any particular day of the month to spell out the success. There must be consistent delivery of this treatment across teams.

Source: https://hbr.org/2016/03/teamwork-works-best-when-top-performers-are-rewarded?