The study aimed to explore the management of performance from the perspective of rewards, which has received much attention due to the huge investments continually been put into tertiary education globally. This quantitative study argues that there is the need to determine the reward that goes with the expected performance and that, it is through the identification of rewards for a particular task that leads to an effective attainment of an equitable balance between contributions from both the employee and the organization respectively. This quantitative study used a canonical correlational method, through the use of a self-administered survey to investigate the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards to performance of educational institutions of higher learning in Ghana, focusing on both academic and non-academic employees. The findings from the analysis was statistically significant in defining relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic reward practices, and that both predicted performance of academic and non-academic employee of educational institutions of higher learning in Ghana. The findings therefore emphasize that employees of educational institution of higher learning in Ghana understand that when employees are psychologically satisfied intrinsically, then a social context is created for conducive teamwork and other discretionary behaviors be achieved extrinsically, for enhanced general working conditions at the work place. Keywords: Intrinsic rewards; extrinsic rewards; education institutions; employee performance DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-32-12 Publication date: November 30 th 2020