Introduction: Reward systems are very important in organizations in terms of employees’ satisfaction and effectiveness of the organization. Therefore, managers’ perception from   the proper and effective use of reward and recognition programs is essential.

Aim: the aim of this study was assessing the in-effective factors in rewards for nurses.

Method: this study as a case study was done in one teaching hospital in Zanjan provenance in 2011 that all of the nurses in five in-patients units 9 head nurses and 33 nurses were participated. Data were gathered by two questionairs 1) questionair for assessing in-effective factors in rewards in seven domainsin reward management based on Likert scale, and 2) questionair for perceived internal and external rewards in nurses’ views based on yes and no scale. Validity in contcent and face were assessed and reliability for two questionairs by α Chronbach was 70%.Interview with head nurses was used. Data analyzing was done by using SPSS 17 and content analysis was used for interviews.

Results: The rewards was not enough effectiveness, most of non effectiveness factors from the nurses views were:  inadequate rewards, lack of use nurses’ ideas in rewarding, reward criteria not being careful, non allocation of valence rewards frequently with (97%), lack of fair distribution of rewards and verity of them (94%), lack of proper relationship between optimal performance and rewards (%78.8), lack of proper balance between experience of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. These factors from head nurses views were lack of appropriate scales for performance apprasial and reward policies.

Conclusion: Nurse Managers would be applied strategies that affective on diagnosed factors   for effective reward.