My company will begin this New Year as a neophyte in the business world; a newbie in the industry. Just four months old, the company is holding its own even in a tough economy and I have to hand it to my small group of employees for sticking with me and working so hard to get everything done. I wish that I could pay them more but as a new company the bottom line is ultra-important and I’m just happy to have my head above water right now. What I have decided to do, however, is to implement an employee incentives program; something to give my employees the confidence that their work is being acknowledged and is appreciated.
An employee recognition program sets up goals that the employees are expected to reach and the prize incentives that match those goals. The company that I worked with to set up my rewards program was great in their understanding that I did not have a lot of money to work with but still wanted to do something nice for my employees. They helped me understand that the scope of the employee program was entirely up to me - scaled to match my budget instead of the other way around. Then, as my company grows I can revisit the employee recognition program and make whatever changes I want to make.
Right now the employee recognition program that I’m using includes small electronics and jewelry - not overly expensive prize incentives by any means but still things that are appealing to employees and things that they may put in extra effort to get by reaching the pre-determined goals that we have outlined. This employee recognition program stays within my budget and honors the needs of a small business - while still motivating employees like any large corporation.
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The great part about the holidays is the chance to relax and really sink your teeth into something that is all about magic; a chance to escape reality. The bad part, of course, is that it eventually comes to an end and reality awaits. It can be a real letdown and a lot of people have a hard time “coming off” the holidays and coming down from the excitement; getting back into the regular grind can be enormously difficult. Companies that are considering implementing a rewards program might well consider the New Year as a great time to go about doing that; a way to get the New Year off to a great start and motivate employees when they are typically feeling down and out. After all, the holidays are over, the winter is here, and it’s difficult to keep your eye on the prize. A well coordinated employee recognition program can put some fire under employees and make it a great time of year for any company.
In order to do this effectively work with a company that understands how best an employee program works - can offer solid direction on the types of prizes will be best suited to your employees and still stay within your budget. Such a professional company can lay out your rewards program within the parameters that you are comfortable with and help you manage it accordingly. Then, if things change in the months/years to come the employee recognition program can change to include prizes that are more in keeping with your budget and your employees’ expectations.
Not only do incentive programs set up goals for the coming year they let employees know that their efforts are still recognized, still appreciated, and still counted on in order to make the coming year successful for everyone involved.
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The holidays are a time during which we find it easier to celebrate each other; to say thank you and tell people how we feel about them. For company owners this may be a time when it’s more comfortable to tell your employees how much their work means to the overall success of the business, and if you’re lucky enough to do so - especially in this economy - you may even distribute holiday bonuses. While it’s great to communicate this sentiment - bonus included or not - during this special time of year, it’s important that the appreciation and open communication continue throughout the year. Employees who feel that they have an open door to those in charge - and that their efforts are recognized - are happier employees; and happier employees are more productive employees.
This coming New Year if you’re considering the things that you can change to make your company more effective, consider the things you can do to better support your employees in their efforts. An employee recognition program is a great way to start the New Year off the right way - giving company owners and management an effective vehicle for recognizing their employees’ work and, more than that, getting into the habit of doing so through an organized and structured program. On the flip side, employees now know what is expected of them and know that in reaching particular goals - set out by management - they are eligible to receive a variety of prize incentives.
Employee incentives do not have to be an expensive undertaking. In fact, employee recognition programs only have to be as expensive as you want them to be, depending on your budget and you can always shift gears and expand your program as your budget changes. No matter what you choose as your prize tier, however, the objective is always to honor your employees and the work that they do everyday.
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In the last post we talked about the morale of a company and how low morale among employees can translate to slowed production and, ultimately, a decrease in profits. Company ownership and management may think they are doing all that they can for their employees but the reality is that in most cases employee needs slip through the cracks because management isn’t listening hard enough. A variety of complaints may arise from the employee “peanut gallery” - of which management/owners may only catch snippets; complaints that may include working conditions, issues with benefits, unhappiness with salary, lack of bonus, or more. But, as we discussed, this all boils down to employees not really feeling heard; feeling as though they don’t matter to the company. And when employees feel as if no one cares about them they are likely not to care as much about their job. Nothing replaces the need for the company powers-that-be to listen to their employees; but demonstrating a commitment to employee recognition doesn’t hurt either and that’s where a solid rewards program comes into play.
An employee program can be set up with the help of professionals who will actually manage the program. You can start off choosing a host of incentive prizes and change them as the program evolves. Most importantly, starting an employee incentives program should come with some effort towards determining what is best for your company; so work with a professional to determine:
What you can afford. Remember, incentive programs can be manipulated according to your financial needs so even if you choose one program now you can easily change it as your company grows.
What you will use the employee program to do - to reward safety, for sales incentives, retention programs, or team building.
What prizes will work best for motivating your employees - anything from gift cards and electronics to vacations and jewelry.
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There’s nothing worse for an employee than feeling like the work that they do doesn’t matter. They may grumble about their salary, their bonus, their hours, or their inability to communicate with management - but all of these separate and specific complaints really all boil down to the same thing - an employee feeling that they are thought of as “less than” by the people for whom they work. Let’s face it; there are a ton of management techniques out there all designed to help owners and managers better communicate with their employees in a variety of ways but until you are ready to take action and really put these skills to work each and every day you are putting your company at risk of low morale which can slow production and label you with a negative reputation in your industry. A well considered employee rewards program, however, can go a long way towards turning things around.
An employee recognition program, as its name suggests, allows companies to recognize the hard work of their employees by rewarding them with specifically chosen items. Businesses often work with professionals who can set up customized incentive programs that allow the company itself to determine the criteria for employees who are entitled to receive prizes as well as choosing the prizes themselves. The truly great thing about incentive programs is that they can be completely scalable to what is appropriate to the hosting company and can be changed at any time to include a larger selection, more expensive items, less expensive items, who is eligible, and whatever else is important to the company at that time.
Of course putting together a solid employee incentives program means giving careful consideration to your employees, their interests, what might be considered a motivation to them, and, of course, your budget. More in the next post…
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When you own and operate a small company like I do you tend to come into contact with all of your employees in some capacity or another on a daily basis. This is certainly a perk of size as it allows you to have personal conversations with people and to tell employees face to face how much their work means to you as a company and to discuss with them any issues that may arise. But sometimes even that is not enough. Words are great in terms of employee recognition and it has been something that I have taken quite seriously in my role as owner. I try to reach out to employes as often as possible and to let them know that I notice what they are doing and the times in which they go above and beyond to help our company grow. But I felt like there was something more that I could be doing and I found it through an employee incentives program.
A friend who also owns a business of the same size implemented a rewards program last year and has raved about it ever since. I couldn’t do much in the way of bonuses this year because of the economy but I could figure out a way to put together an employee program that made sense for everyone; so I called the company with which my friend had worked.
It’s been several months now since I started an employee recognition program and I can’t say enough how much it has helped to raise morale in our company. I have put my money where my mouth is in terms of telling my employees that I appreciate their work - giving them clear cut goals to shoot for and a host of prizes to choose from when they reach those goals.
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The last year was difficult and that is putting it mildly. Our business struggled just like everyone else’s and while we were far from out of the water we were definitely starting to move in a better direction. We were absolutely wary however; we wanted to take baby steps to make sure that we didn’t get in over our heads and that we were able to maintain our current condition. But here’s the thing: we could not give our employees raises although they had gone without increases for nearly two years and we were not able to give bonuses either. We did, however, want to be able to give our employees the respect they were deserved and that’s when we looked into incentive programs.
An employee program is all about achievement and award. We set the goals for our employees - very specific goals that are all about sales and profit. We then set corresponding awards (or, more accurately, prizes) through our employee recognition program. We worked with a great company that was able to put the whole thing in place for us - helping us choose the prize tier that worked for our budget and would allow us to grow the program as our company grew and we became more profitable.
I can’t tell you how well our employee recognition program went over with our employees. They were being very patient about their salaries but I suppose they were just happy to have jobs in this economy. Our employee incentives program, however, showed them that we were committed to them, appreciated their efforts, and were happy to be able to reward them whenever possible. Let’s face it; in this economy we are all a team - we have to work together to get through these times so we can come out the other side intact.
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In the last post I talked about how we had started our own company - having invested way too much in the process before the economy tanked underneath us. We were working steadily to win new business and keep everything afloat but we were doing it with as little resources as possible. We were highly understaffed; our core team of people had taken on a world of responsibility and they were doing it all on their own without knowing when we would be able to add more employees to our staff. We wanted to do something for our employees that would let them know how much we appreciated their effort but we couldn’t raise anyone’s salary during this tenuous time. Instead we turned to the idea of implementing incentive programs in order to treat our employees to some sort of payoff for working so long and so hard.
An employee recognition program allows us to set a specific goal for our employees and then choose specific incentives from which they can choose if they reach those goals. For our employees, the gifts are something to which they really look forward to earning and the employee incentives program has subsequently raised morale and given us something else to focus on besides the endless work that we seem to do on a daily basis.
For us, our employee program has allowed us to reach out to our employees without breaking the bank. We wanted to be able to show them how much their involvement in our business meant to us and this was the best way to do that at this time. Even better, we can change the prizes any time we want. So we know that, going forward, as we grow we will continue to use incentive programs as an effective tool for recognizing our employees’ hard work.
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Starting a business - especially in this economy - wasn’t an easy decision; but the fact of the matter was that the process was already well under way when the economy crashed. We had already taken out loans (before lending became so difficult) and we were building our company one leg at a time in the spirit of entrepreneurialism. Now that we’re here and operating we are just trying to work as efficiently as possible - keeping a very diligent eye on our bottom line. We are operating with what I would consider to be a skeleton crew. Our staff has made the commitment to do what needs to be done in this fledgling operation and they are most certainly taking on far more responsibility that they had initially intended and without complaint. We can only do so much in terms of salary - at least right now - but we wanted to at least let our people know that we recognized and appreciated the effort they were giving to the process; and in this case how much they were going above and beyond what was originally asked of them. This was when we decided to implement a rewards program.
Incentive programs were never anything that I had considered because I didn’t know they existed before I began in business. But when we were looking for options for trying to raise morale and give our employees some sort of incentive for continuing to work so hard we came across the option of an employee recognition program.
Through an employee program we could show our employees how much their efforts meant to us as a company and reward them in a way that was not going to break the bank. There are many ways in which incentive programs could increase our effectiveness as a company and help our employees continue the good fight until we could have more help on our side. More in the next post…
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Your company doesn’t operate like just any other business, so why would you want to consider cookie cutter incentive programs to reward your workers? When it’s time to show them you appreciate their efforts, make your program as distinct as your business.
When you tailor an employee program to meet your specific needs, your workers will take notice. To get this job done right, you can work with a professional facilitator to draft up a plan. Some of the things you need to consider when doing so include:
The format – Pay close attention to what it is you want to put a rewards program in place to honor. If it’s productivity or sales, consider setting levels at which honors might kick in. If your program will focus more on behavior and integrity, decide how workers will be nominated and awarded. Having clear-cut rules for giving out employee recognition rewards can help keep a program fair and prizes attainable. These are both things workers will appreciate.
The budget – You probably don’t want to hand out employee incentives that came from a dime store. Still, you need to be realistic about the budget. Set one that fits your company’s needs.
The prizes – A professional facilitator can help immensely on this front. Make sure to consider prizes your workers will enjoy and gain inspiration from. If you work with a facilitator, you might even find you can offer your workers a variety of prizes that fall within your budget that they can choose from. The best facilitators can provide you access to thousands of prize options, which can be a real boon for a program. A tiered structure is also worth looking at. This can enable you to honor the highest achievers with bigger prizes and great performers with something a little less expensive.
Creating your own employee program from the ground up will let workers know they matter to your company. Going cookie cutter just won’t always provide the same results. It can help to work with a facilitator who knows how to guide the process and offer you and your employees access to a variety of rewards.
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