Most companies - regardless of size - experience at one time or another a breakdown in communication with their employees whether they have a dozen employees or thousands. In such a fast paced world, as we continue to do business faster and faster, we have learned to adapt through advanced technologies that allow us to communicate with our clients and our vendors at a rapid clip and in the most efficient way possible; but we have somehow failed to extend that level of efficient communication in-house amongst our team of management and employees. The result can often be a disenfranchised employee base who feels as though their needs are not only far from being met but are also being completely ignored. This was our story almost two years ago - the result of a combination of several different factors if I’m being honest but most stemming from our rapid growth. It was great to experience that level of growth and to have the opportunity to reach out to new sectors of business but in-house we were experiencing some pretty significant growing pains without a whole lot of ideas about how to manage them. The answer came in the suggestion to implement an employee program - a way that we could let our employees know that their ideas and needs mattered to us and something that could be controlled fiscally by growing or shrinking the program according to our budgetary situation at the time.
We began our employee recognition program on a pretty big scale. We were doing well and had the money to spend so we set up - with the company that helped us manage the program for our nearly 1,000 employees - a tier of management-determined business goals and prize incentives that would be offered to the employees who reached those goals. Again, we started strong with some incredible vacations and even flat screen televisions. It was the right thing to do and it would pay off in big ways when the economy crashed around us. More in the next post…
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There is nothing better than running a company that not only has the respect of the industry as a whole but also has the full, unequivocal support of its employees. Anyone in business knows that this is a difficult feat to pull off under any circumstances but most decidedly now when economic conditions warrant everyone to tighten their belts and operate with as much of a barebones staff as possible. Those companies that are able to keep the motivation of their employees high and support morale even in bleak economic conditions know a thing or two about planning; and those who include incentive programs in their plans know that they are something that can really pay off for employees as well as management.
Incentive programs allow for the company in question to put together a variety of goals for employees to achieve and a host of prize incentives that coordinate with the reaching of those goals. Employee recognition programs can be anything that you want them to be - large scale programs that include high ticket items like jewelry and trips or lower scale programs that are more in line with your budget and include such things as gift certificates to restaurants and small electronic items.
The most important thing to remember about incentive programs - other than the fact that they work in helping to motivate employees in a way that management alone is often not able to achieve - is the fact that they can be scaled according to a company’s budget. Meaning, that while your rewards program may look a certain way now it can be drastically - or even microscopically - altered to fit your budget as your company grows and changes. There are not many things out there that allow companies to reach out to employees in such a way and certainly not many programs that allow companies to scale them to size.
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In the last post I talked about our company’s eventual decision to implement incentive programs into our operation. We were looking for a cost-effective program that would allow us to recognize our employees in a personal way - but something that would not require a huge upfront financial investment on our part. We were in the same boat as everyone else right now; the economy was not our friend. Still, we had to do something. We were continuing to recruit people and we spent a lot on that process alone, not to mention the money that we put into training good employees. Our ultimate goal was to integrate them into our team and to have them stay on with us throughout their career. Turnover was not budget friendly. We had done all that we could in terms of salary and bonus but we needed something more immediate; something to which employees could relate right away and would motivate them on a daily basis.
An employee recognition program was the perfect solution but we needed to work with a professional team to determine the right program for us now - as well as having the continued support as our situation changed and we were able to put more money into the program.
The people that we worked with were great - enormously informative about incentive programs in general and about what kind of employee recognition program would be most beneficial for us. They were able to help us identify the tiers of prizes that would work best for our employees as well as our budget at the moment. They also provide continued management - not only in helping us to implement and manage our current program but helping us to grow our employee program as our budget and our needs change in the future.
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The choice to even enter into an employee recognition program - for our company - was a long time in coming. We had known for some time that we needed to up the ante when it came to taking care of our employees. We spend a lot of money finding, training and grooming the right people so that they will one day become seasoned members of our team; but what we had been finding is that we were dropping the ball past this point. That once they were trained and were “in the groove” so to speak most employees felt that they were left out to dry. They were unhappy and felt unheard; and unhappiness among employees breeds high turnover; plain and simple. We needed to step up the plate in terms of taking care of the people that mattered to us and we needed to do it quickly We chose incentive programs.
A rewards program would allow us to stand behind our words with our employees. We could say how great they were doing, how much we appreciated them until we were blue in the face. But what did that really mean in the end? Our employees needed to see something from us. Salary increases and bonuses were great but what could motivate them on a daily basis to keep up the good fight?
We knew many other businesses that had benefited from their own employee program and they did not have to make a huge financial investment in order to make it happen. This was important for us; we needed to be able to hit the ground running with this but we didn’t have a lot of cash on our side - at least not right now. So we set out to talk to the professionals who could help us set up incentive programs that would work for our current circumstances and ultimately grow with our company.
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In this day and age most employers will not argue that good employees are hard to find. It’s difficult enough to find someone who wants to work; who has a passion for what they do and a desire to achieve success. Then of course to find someone who is skilled in what they do and has the ability to hit the ground running is another thing entirely. Unfortunately it also seems that when those people are identified and they are trained and integrated into the workforce they leave sooner expected. Turnover continues to be high and for companies that desire to build a family of employees who stay with the company for the long haul this can be enormously frustrating. What causes such high turnover? There are a number of different factors. Job dissatisfaction, unhappiness with salary, desire to move on to another area to a higher position; the list goes on and on. But one thing that employers can do to make sure that they are doing right by their employees is to make sure that they are properly recognizing their work. What does this mean? Well what we are finding is that it means more than words and a pat on the back.
It is part of human nature to want to be recognized; for our hard work to be seen and validated. An employee recognition program allows employers to do more than just acknowledge their employees through their words; it allows them to acknowledge them through action. An employee rewards program matches achievement with different tiers of incentive prizes that employees can earn. Companies of all sizes, across all industries are finding the benefits in an employee recognition program - of being able to show their employees that their work is seen and honoring them for that work through a selection of prizes that can range from electronics to full blown vacations.
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Spending money in business is done with careful consideration. Return on investment, of course, is the biggest consideration when it comes to planning a budget. What will this short term investment deliver in terms of long term benefits? These were all the things we considered when we debated about implementing an employee recognition program. Here’s what we knew…we were tackling an employee morale issue and we didn’t have the cash on hand to be able to throw salary increases at everyone.We knew that incentive programs were a great way to improve morale - and subsequently improve production - and the investment could be as little or as much as we wanted. This was music to our ears as we tried to figure out the best way to grow our business and use our money wisely.
An employee program could be set up and managed with very little investment. It was a way to show our employees that we appreciated their work and it was a way for the employees themselves to become more engaged in their own work. Working hard to achieve specific goals is always a good thing for motivation and morale - especially when it involves healthy competition.
Best of all, the employee recognition program could grow right along with our company. As we grew and made more money we could throw more money into the employee program; allowing for better incentive prizes or an additional tier of prizes. What we liked so much about the program was that it was completely within our control; we did not need to commit to this huge financial investment in order to set it up; and the return on investment was well documented by other companies of our size that had realized huge leaps in production by implementing a rewards program of their own.
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Hiring a new employee is an investment on the part of every company. Think about it; you put time into training, you spend money on benefits and all the rest; you make an investment of time and money in every employee that comes to work with your company. Of course you want to minimize turnover; to maximize the chances that an employee will be a good investment and stay with your company for the long term as a valuable asset to your team. We make every effort in our business to reduce our turnover and to make it difficult for employees to walk away; we know that the early stage of any relationship is a trial run and we understand that new employees are evaluating us just as much as we are evaluating them. Which is why we very quickly enroll our new employees into our employee recognition program.
Incentive programs are nothing new in the workforce but they have grown in scale to be sure. Essentially a company puts together a tier of goals and corresponding prizes - jewelry, electronics, even vacations - that employees can win. This is a great way to spark competition, improve morale, and provide employees with motivation to achieve goals that may be above and beyond what they would normally do. We have used a rewards program in our company for some time and we are happy to extend it to our new employees almost right away.
What we have found is that new employees who are allowed to participate in our incentive programs are motivated to achieve success right from the start and we are able to capitalize on the motivation that already comes with starting a new job. Plus, we are able to show our employees right from the beginning that we are invested in them and willing to reward them well for a job well done.
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