It only works if such a behaviour is rewarded. In many settings, stepping up will men you doing the work while someone else gets the reward.
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As a manager, it’s really not hard to see who’s actually doing what within a team. I’d have to be completely blind to communications and stop doing 1:1s to mis-attribute some work to the wrong person. As a developer I’m also familiar with Git and routinely look through recent commits, usually just to maintain familiarity with what’s being done but it also makes it clear who’s delivering what code.
But even if I wasn’t as involved, it’s still easy to see who’s always stepping up to help others and who’s struggling to deliver on their own with nearly any tiny amount of communication with the team.
It’s also really easy to see who’s developing a “not my job, not my problem” attitude. When a team gets to a point where individuals are delivering what they consider “their work” but the team as a whole struggles to deliver anything because everyone avoids the loose ends or refuses to help others, the entire team is getting poor performance reviews.
> As a manager, it’s really not hard to see who’s actually doing what within a team.
You may be good at this, but lots of managers are not.
How should employers reward such behavior?
I’m guessing a “thank you, good job” isn’t what you mean by “gets the reward”.
Bonuses and increased compensation if possible. If not, then increased autonomy, respect, and trust at the very least. If someone goes above and beyond outside of their job description, they're demonstrating initiative and judgement.
What you shouldn't do that a lot of places do is just give the person more work with nothing else. "Good job, now keep doing that AND all your other work for the same salary. That's cool, right? Your boss got a fat bonus for your work, though."
The very least, you should not reward alternate behaviour like in my example above. That's a good place to start. In some of the cases I have seen, individual contributors got a pat on the back while the others got disproportionate raises, bonuses etc.
In your year end performance review it should show how impactful you have been, not only to your team but to other teams as well, and should be used as part of the consideration for promotions.
Money.
From my experience, this is true, but reward is not why such behavior becomes culture. Culture is ingrained by leaders who act and lead according to value organization adheres to. The key here is to have leaders at every level who embodies such value. Having such values baked into performance evaluation is how "reward" plays a role in engendering and sustaining such culture. It is about whom does the organization promotes and chooses to be a leader. It's not about simple salary increase or cash rewards, as such things don't last more than a few months.
Learn the politics of the organizations you work for. Learn how to gain visibility for your work. This is primarily how to communicate its impact to stakeholders of all kinds, not just tech people. Learn it's hard to hire engineers, and if your manager isn't helping you with the above, it's time to quit or tell someone above them.
Truly I've never had trouble getting recognition for extraordinary work, and I've worked at a lot of questionable organizations.
or worse: you do the work, they'll get the reward but they are still afraid of the risks so they reject it.