Why appreciating your employees helps grow your back pocket.

Looking at increasing productivity? Want more profit coming in? Need to engage your workforce? You won’t believe how easy it can be.

Since time immemorial business have been trying to find ways to get more out of their workforce. Whether you’re looking at an overall increase in profit, higher retention rate for staff, or even just simply more motivated employees, many businesses don’t realise how effective a properly implemented incentive and reward program can be to their workplace.

Incentives are great tools to motivate employees to go above and beyond. A well implemented incentive program can encourage excellent employees to consistently go the extra mile, just remember though, that they are not meant to reward employees for doing what's expected of them.

So how do you go about starting an incentive program at your business and what type is best for your business?

Firstly, you will need to determine whether you want to reward an individual, a group or the whole company. There are pro’s and con’s to each reward program so you will need to pick one that is suited to your business and whichever you decide on you need to make sure that it is S.M.A.R.T, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Bound.

So what type of reward or recognition is right for you and your business? The following are the main types of incentive programs available.

Compensation incentives:

When your employees go above and beyond consistently then compensating them is a great way to keep the motivation going. It could be annual salary raises, a one-time bonus, profit sharing and stock options. These are great incentives to help encourage loyalty to a company.

Recognition incentives:

Unfortunately, many companies don’t thank their employees. Managers and business owners think that giving them a job and paying them is reward enough, but the simple act of recognising good work makes an employee feel valued. Fortunately, there are many simple ways to recognise your employees hard work and it doesn’t need to cost a fortune either. Thanking, praising, presenting employees with a certificate of achievement, or announcing an accomplishment at a company meeting. Recognizing the accomplishments of an employee or a whole group of employees with a simple thank you or a plaque for the accomplishment can go a long way in maintaining great work and great relationships.

Rewards incentives:

These are generally for larger businesses but can be scaled to suit your business. Reward incentive includes monetary rewards, prizes, or even trips abroad to help build moral. This incentive usually coincides with the recognition incentives. Sometimes saying thank you isn’t enough, so saying thank you with a trip or prize can really drive home the point and help encourage the employee to continue contributing to the team.

Appreciation incentives:

Why not throw a party have a dinner somewhere? Family gatherings for the employees like picnics, and just general celebrations for good employee work. Showing your appreciation through food and celebration is always a great go to.

Here at The Eleventh Agency we love a good Incentive Program and have successfully planned group trips abroad for high performers, gala dinners and parties for many companies that understand that rewarding their employees makes good business sense.