3 UNIQUE WAYS TO REWARD YOUR EMPLOYEES
How many of you remember being rewarded for good behaviour in school? Certainly most of you. Many of you will also recollect how your parents always told you to get good grades if you want that toy you love so much.The point we are trying to make is that since childhood our minds have been deeply conditioned to believe in the effort to reward correlation. Needless to say, when we ventured into the world to earn our daily bread and landed our respective corporate jobs, we subconsciously demand the same outcome. We put efforts and in return expect to be rewarded. And thus was born the concept of rewards at the workplace. Workplace rewards are incentive programs designed to encourage employees for a job well done. In turn, they bump employee engagement, improve morale and enhance overall organizational productivity.
Reward systems operate in a simple way much similar to our childhood conditioning. Through a performance management system, the organization recognizes employees who excel in different areas of business operations such as finance, administration, human resources, technology, sales and so on. These exceptional performers are then awarded certain benefits/ deemed rewards. The rewards could either be monetary like an incentive, bonus or non-monetary in the form of additional time off, swanky new laptop, gift cards or concert tickets depending upon the organization.
Employees for evident reasons would like to be rewarded monetarily, however it isn’t possible to reward every employee with a promotion or a salary increment. Hence, we have non-monetary rewards. Let us take a few minutes to dive into the basics of monetary and non-monetary rewards before we proceed further.
MONETARY REWARDS:
No matter how driven an employee is, there’s nothing like an incentive to light the fire of motivation. Incentives can improve employee morale and bolster productivity. Financial incentives are used to motivate employees to improve their performance. Many employees are motivated by the goal of a handsome paycheck. As an employer, if you offer an additional reward apart from salary, it gives the employees an extra motivation to go above and beyond.
Some Incentives used to motivate employees to improve their performance are as follows:
- Pay and Allowances
- Productivity Linked Wage Incentives
- Bonus
- Profit-Sharing
- Co-partnership/Stock Option
- Retirement Benefits
- Perquisites.
NON MONETARY REWARDS:
Given the competitive economic landscape that we operate in, running a business is an expensive affair. Not to mention the mandate of incentivizing employees takes its toll on the company budgets, leaving it in a tight financial spot. It becomes impossible to promote and appraise all employees, however, acknowledging efforts is paramount if you are to retain employees and sustain longevity. Thus employees are rewarded non monetarily keeping in mind the need to address and recognize special achievement or the completion of something that enhances an employee’s job performance or value to the company.
Some popular non-monetary benefits are:
- Flexible working arrangements
- Provide extensive training plans
- Offer tangible recognition for staff who consistently excel
- Provide a day off (outside of annual leave) as a reward for successful task completion
- Create a monthly office theme day to boost morale
- Offer rewards based on specific personal interests
- Include peer-nominated awards
- Experiential rewards
It’s fair to say that if you’re considering using non-monetary incentives as a motivational tool, you are only limited by your imagination and maybe the needs or wants of your employees. But, you’re the boss, so it’s up to you to decide how you incentivize your employees. Rewards are a powerful tool used for employee engagement. Recognizing and rewarding your employees effectively is crucial for retaining top talent and keeping employees happy. We’re becoming a culture in which people expect to be rewarded for every action big or little, which makes the job of an HR or business leader tasked with employee retention a difficult one indeed. Here are 3 unique insider tips that take the cake when it comes to rewarding employees:
1. SOCIAL RECOGNITION::
Humans aren’t horses. They enjoy rewards and recognition but monetary incentives don’t keep them motivated for long. They are driven by other forces like self-satisfying feelings of competence, value and meaning. Hence, social acknowledgement becomes a huge motivator. Think about it – when someone gives you a “nice job!” does that make you want to slouch in a corner and check your email, or get at it and do even greater work? Modern recognition programs like Let’s Buzzz connect us to those feelings. Instead of making praise one-to-one, they stream it to the organization. One-to-many.
The office landscape is extremely dynamic and employees need more than the remunerative (monetary) incentives to stay engaged. At such times, having a centralized online platform is the best way to create an appreciative and engaged workforce. Socially acknowledging good work has a very powerful impact on the minds of people making it the easiest way to motivate employees.
A Globoforce research study in 2013 showed that 89 per cent of people are more motivated by being told what they are doing right than by being told what they are doing wrong. Bob Nelson showed very similar results and is best summarized by this quote: “You get what you reward.” (Inc.com – The powerful impact of acknowledging good work) so reward your employees by listening to them, investing time in their professional development, encouraging peer-to-peer appreciation.
Here’s a little story about how acknowledgement drives excellence.
“Some years ago, Barry Marshall, the chief people officer at the TradeDesk (a digital media buying agency) were launching a new office, they hired a temporary person to support their recruiting process. As with most people that Barry worked with, he took the time to speak with the temp. every couple of days and encourage her work. After several months, demonstrating great work and contributing to our positive culture environment, she asked Barry if she could apply for one of the roles herself and become a full-time employee. While the role was a stretch for her and she didn’t have the typical background for it, from their interactions Barry Marshall knew that she was hard-working and would put in the effort to make it work. So he encouraged her to apply and told her to let him know how things were going. She interviewed, got the job, and after a few years, ended up managing a team of her own. She mentioned to him on several occasions the positive impact that acknowledgement had in building her confidence and furthering the success of her own career. (sourced from Inc.com – The powerful impact of acknowledging good work)
The most meaningful rewards tend to be unexpected, specific and demonstrate that the company cares about the employee as people, beyond their working life thus making them feel connected and acknowledged.
2. ACKNOWLEDGING EXEMPLARY BEHAVIOUR:
Once in a supermarket, there was a mother shopping with 2 small kids. This mom with her 2 kids in the store kept up a stream of chatter. She kept encouraging her kids to help her out in whatever little way they could. She kept communication with them clean and simple and appreciated their small but supportive actions like “good job pushing the cart” or “thank you for helping me pick out cookies, but we have enough at home, please put them away” this went on for some time and the mother reverted any action with a positive affirmation and the children obliged. She eventually left with what seemed like a happy and rewarding shopping experience with her tow totters while she managed to successfully engage them in constructive action rather than creating a nuisance. – Moral of the story: reflexive praise for doing the right thing paired with simple and clear communication is the key to engaged behaviour
Workplaces are changing, employees today expect to be rewarded for any and every significant action. But these rewards go beyond incentives. People crave positive feedback, recognition when they put in extra effort, acknowledgement of leaders and peers and the glow that comes with knowing an achievement has been seen, appreciated and celebrated. Recognition is a key tool in employee retention programs for a reason. Its because people need more than constructive feedback, they need positive affirmation. They need recognition of extra effort but also for demonstrating exemplary behaviour and good traits like decision making, creativity or cross-team collaborations. They need to “feel” it. This will never go away as a basic human need and it must be addressed to engage, motivate and reward employees duly.
Make employees feel like their efforts are not going unnoticed. They are being heard and their actions matter. Reward not only productive actions that contribute to the bottom line but also actions that help build a healthy and positive work culture. Recognizing employees for displaying exemplary behaviours, efforts and accomplishments are important as it helps increase engagement and loyalty and causes employees to do more great work.
3. INSTANT GRATIFICATION:
Rewards are a powerful tool used for employee engagement. Recognizing and rewarding your employees effectively is crucial for retaining talent and keeping employees happy. The key to successful employee rewards is being creative and thoughtful. A stable pay package or promotion are not the only motivators in retaining the workforce. Our workforce today is smart and sincere. They work hard and expect a satiating employee experience in return to keep them motivated. Thus instant gratification becomes the need of the hour if you are genuinely interested in driving employee engagement. Who doesn’t like to be rewarded and what if you could choose from various bucket list-worthy rewards instantly. Let’s Buzzz enables spot rewards and instant redemption for employees. The manager simply buzzes the team member and awards him/her some points for their achievements which they can redeem against a list of e-vouchers of their choice. It is as simple as online shopping. Now, wouldn’t that be a pleasant surprise?
Of course, it means a lot of work for the manager as he/she will have to take this decision on the spot and only when it is meaningful. But it has considerable benefits in the long run. An employee who has been rewarded is often more motivated to remain with the company. It can cost a business quite a bit to deal with the loss of old employees and the training of new ones. Rewards, given to employees who are considering leaving the company, may increase employees’ probability of retention and decrease the company’s long-term training costs.
When it comes to acknowledging your employees’ hard work, there are no one-size-fits-all techniques that can work for anyone. But keeping these unique points in mind you can ensure that your employee acknowledgement program runs as smoothly as possible.
Remember your people will always know when they’re valued, and they should have a good idea of their value to the organization. Monetary rewards can skew this notion of value, decreasing the lifespan of motivation. But for longevity in employee tenure employee value should be linked to the appreciation of extra effort and behaviours. Money is appropriate much of the time, but it’s not the only – or even the most effective – motivator. Treat employees as valued team members, not as numbers. Most of the time it’s the best way to really recognize a valued player.
Let’s Buzzz enables you to reward your employees with a click of a button. Want to know more, click here to request a demo.