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Employee Rewards and Recognition Tips
How do you keep your best people motivated and performing at their best with limited time and resources?
Rewards and Recognition
Reward and recognition systems in their standard format of the employee of the quarter, cash bonuses at Christmas and big staff shows can be a big cost to small businesses.
The economy isn’t what it used to be and businesses are cutting back on discretionary expenses.
In one of my previous posts, I wrote about employee disengagement and the flip side is how important employee engagement can be to a successful business.
Keeping your employees engaged can be achieved through small, continuous and timely recognition.
These simple rewards and recognition tools along with an open, transparent culture of communication and collaboration will boost your employee engagement and can lift morale when times are tough.
1. Incorporate an employee contribution award
Recognising people at your weekly meetings is a great way of publicising someone’s contribution or achievement. A few words about why the person was chosen coming straight from their manager will go a long way in helping develop a culture of recognition in your business.
Keep in mind that not everyone likes to be recognised publicly, so allow for private recognition as well.
People like to feel they’re special. Add a monthly ‘coffee with the boss’ session to your morning tea times. Or, perhaps the business owner can take an employee out for a coffee to have some 1:1 time.
This might sound like a no brainer, but if you’ve got hourly paid staff a simple way of rewarding a job well done is to extend their lunch break. If Bob’s done a really great job getting through his work in a week, why not let him take a half-hour extra for lunch?
Sending out a weekly achievement email or an on-the-spot ‘great job Jane’ to your entire company to acknowledge when someone’s received great feedback from a customer or done a really good job. Recognition and feedback have the most impact when delivered in (or close to) the moment.
Why not head out for a team lunch on the boss? Or better yet, you as a manager could bring in a shared lunch for the team! Home-baked goods go a long way too.
Feedback and recognition doesn’t just come from ‘management’ or Human Resources. You could develop a program aligned to your culture and values.
Employees can get involved and recognise a job well done by their colleagues or simply say ‘thanks for your help’ when someone has chipped in to help out.
These are just 5 quick ways to recognise your awesome staff. The important thing is to empower everyone to be involved.
I’d love to hear about how you’ve implemented quick and inexpensive ways of recognising your top staff!
Human Resources for Consulting Small and Medium Businesses in Adelaide and South Australia. Simple, and tailored advice, what you need and not what you don’t.