Increasing employee performance through motivation and incentivization in an office setting is a daunting task for any manager. Yet, there are no better employees than the motivated ones, as such workers are more productive over a longer period of time. Additionally, if your workers are motivated, workplace morale will stay high and employees will stay in your company for a longer time, improving your employee retention rate. So, how do you build a motivated workforce? Although there are over several dozen ways to motivate your employees, they all ultimately boil down to making your workers feel fulfilled within their job. In this post, we present to you our top picks.
Cash
Money is an unavoidable part of a business and the main reasons why your employees come to their job every day. However, it isn’t always an effective motivator. At least not for prolonged motivation of workers. However, there is one exception to this rule – the New Year bonus. When you receive recognition for your work via such bonus, something you’ve earned becomes much more valuable than merely being given cash. This works on most people, as they feel like they have deserved it. Since this is a particular time of a year where there are many expenses, this bonus will be well appreciated.
How to reward your employees – the basics
When you base the rewarding of your employees on only one measurement, this will often not improve your organization’s performance. The point is to have a program for rewarding your employees, based on a few key principles. For starters, don’t promise rewards in advance – give them at unexpected times, so that people don’t change their intentions and concentrate on the reward. Provide them in gift boxes, to emphasize this surprise element of rewards. Next, keep anticipated rewards small and reward continuously, not just once. Rewarding in public, rather than privately, will let everyone know what is appreciated and why. Ultimately, it is better to reward behaviors, rather than outcomes. The latter is often achieved through sheer luck, while the behavior is about hard work and determination.
Giving to the people what they want
To create rewards which your employees will actually want to work for, you will need to put yourself in their shoes and consider what is meaningful to your workers. Giving out rewards which your workers don’t see as worth the effort, will not increase productivity and will just make you spend the money for nothing. Determine what rewards you can offer that are specific to your organization or industry, rewards which they cannot get anywhere else. Branded items are great, but only if they are interesting and cool. Staying away from pencils and pens and going towards cool tech gear such as speakers, portable chargers, and smartwatches will produce better results. Experiences like master-classes particularly for your business and brand, VIP parking for a month, and office-wide rewards such as a DJ for the day or a delicious catered lunch will show your workers that you really care, as well as giving them products and experiences they really appreciate.
Blow off steam on-site
Imagine having a company that has a gym inside the building and that offers free yoga classes. There, employees would rarely be stressed out. You can even go further than that – why not teach your workers some fun dance moves? For instance, you can hire a dance instructor to teach dance moves in your office while projecting 20-foot-tall YouTube clips on the wall. Maybe your employees like to keep fit and dance? In addition to bringing the team together, it will come to embody your core value of “keeping it fun” and help potential recruits get a taste of your company culture. Having extracurricular activities inside the workplace helps break up the monotony and could create some really original team-building opportunities.
The ways mentioned above will allow you to attract and retain top talent in a meaningful and sustainable way that doesn’t fit within the usual corporate norms. Moreover, these approaches for incentivizing your employees are specific to different business needs and company cultures. They key is to find out what’s right for your team members and your company.
