Rewarding your employees can be an impactful tool to increase their engagement and productivity, but many business leaders often struggle with this. Only 15% of employees around the globe are actually engaged in their jobs – a distressing fact.
Engaged and satisfied employees are crucial for efficient workspace productivity and engaged employees are less likely to leave their job, making you retain top talent for longer and your organization’s overall productivity and profitability increases over time.
First things first, you need to align the rewards you offer with your company’s values in order to positively influence how they’re received. Rewards don’t have to be big or expensive and you have tens of options to motivate employees without a pay raise even.
In most cases, small rewards create a greater impact as they are given more consistently, and consistency is critical for successful employee recognition. Being creative and not spending too much is the key point for building employee rewards that everyone is excited about. Let’s see what you can do:
1- Unexpected slow clap
Pack as many employees as you can
into a conference room and have the worker being rewarded walk in without
expecting anything. Proceed by starting a slow clap that turns into a standing
ovation. It may sound cheesy at first, but there will never be a person that
doesn’t like a good slow clap.
2- Gift cards
Giving out gift cards is a great
way to celebrate your employees’ personal successes, employment anniversaries
or birthdays.
For instance, you could offer a prepaid visa card that can be loaded with a certain amount of cash that your employee can spend on whatever they like. Such gift cards can be customized with your brand logo on it – a nice bonus for increasing your brand image.
Gift cards are a deeply personal
way of saying – “thank you for all the hard work you’ve done”.
3- Books and libraries
As a company leader, you should
provide the materials an employee requires to improve their efficiency in
work-related skills. Discover what books and other educational resources would
be invaluable for your workers. eBooks and audiobooks are a great alternative,
as they’re received digitally, which makes them a green technology and
acquiring them is easier.
Some companies also create office
libraries that enable employees to have a place where they can find books they
wanted for their professional development. You can also create personalized
bookplates that recognize each individual book addition and the reason for
adding it.
4- Long and healthy lunches
Prolong your workers’ lunch
break. A longer, relaxed lunch creates an enjoyable atmosphere for the rest of
the workday, while that extra time spent won’t impact productivity output by
too much.
Keep the break room brimming with
healthy office snacks that will make your employees feel cared for.
Healthy food habits enable your workers to be more productive in the long run.
5- T-shirts
Make a limited-edition employee
t-shirt that everyone will covet because you will make them from the softest
materials and with impeccable design. Years later, people will still wear them
with pride. Just remember to create a great t-shirt, not a sleazy and bland
one.
Or go with alternatives, like glass water bottles or coffee mugs. An important step here is to match those items with your team’s cultural preferences. For example, if there are a lot of outdoor people on your team, go with packs, water bottles or something that can be used for employee field day, hiking and trekking.
This all can be branded or
personalized, of course. If not sure what to pick, ask around be open to your
employees’ suggestions. Involve them!
6- Responsibility
The level of responsibility your
employee has needs to be directly bound to their level of capabilities. Select
your employee to take the lead on crucial operations, or give them the right to
decide about their work without your involvement, as this show that you believe
in them and their capabilities.
You will show that you hold their
career goals in serious regard and that you consider them worthy of more
important roles within the enterprise.
The Bottom Line:
It is not the price or the reward
itself that matters. It often that extra personal touch that you put into
rewarding your employees that shows that you truly care about them and their
careers. In this increasingly cold and impersonal age which we’ve come to live
in, caring for others is becoming a long-forgotten virtue. Don’t follow that
road. Care, appreciate and love your workers just like you love the business
you run, and they will return it tenfold.
