26th: Offer incentives to your employees
Jan 01, 2024
Only appreciation and thank you notes are not enough. You people expect monetary benefits for being loyal and highly efficient. Employee incentive programs improve productivity and boost their morale. When you generously compensate them, they may stay with you for a long time and may go beyond their job profile to help you grow your business.
Here are some employee incentive ideas that may encourage your people to be more collaborative:
- Create programs that encourage your people to help each other and work together as a team instead of competing among themselves. Such a competition can create a toxic work environment.
- Create simple, achievable goals for your employees and reward them as promised. Do not create complicated, almost impossible goals that will discourage employees.
- Align your incentive programs with your business goals. For example, if you want to increase revenues, set incentives for upselling and cross-selling.
- Create different programs so almost everyone gets a chance to win. Do not choose only a specific department or else it may cause dispute or sound like favoritism.
- Along with monetary compensation, you can come up with different ways to recognize your people’s hard work such as paid holidays, health and wellness compensation, branded merchandise, gift vouchers, gym memberships, free courses to upgrade their skills, paid day-offs, etc.
- Reward frequently. Do not have long-term programs because your employees may lose their motivation. Bi-weekly or monthly programs are great. People would want to work hard for monthly goals but if you come up with plans where they are required to work hard for months to get a reward, they may not be interested.
One of the biggest issues you may face with the employee incentive programs is that your staff may try to cut corners or use unethical means to achieve his/her targets. Be vigilant and educate your people not to indulge in any such activities.
