In the last post, I talked about the tremendous growth of my company and how happy I was to have seen it flourish over the years. The downside, if there had to be one, however, was that I was less in touch with my employees. While we used to be a small but solid team that worked together shoulder to shoulder in the trenches everyday, today we were a spread out by size. My company had tripled in size over of the years and while this was amazing from a business perspective, I had to admit it made me miss the old days in terms of the personal relationships I had with my employees.

I had taken steps to make things better by reaching out to my employees in a number of ways and one of those ways was through the employee incentives program that I put in place. Through a rewards program, I could set and define the goals that I wanted employees (and the company at large) to reach. By reaching these important goals, employees would then be eligible to choose prize incentives from the rewards program that we set up.

The employee program has been amazing on so many levels and has brought about great change in our company. The benefits have included:

A change in morale. A bigger company is harder to gage in terms of employee morale day to day. When morale is high, however, a positive spirit pervades the entire organization and that is what we were seeing everyday.

Higher production. It’s not a surprise that happier employees mean better production. They come to work ready to do the job and they are excited about the goals they can reach and what they can accomplish both individually and as a team.

Reconnection. I had found that our employee recognition program had opened a dialogue again between me and my employees. It wasn’t just about the job anymore; we were connected through something fun and meaningful to everyone.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Share This

When you have a small company it’s par for the course to see most if not all of your employees throughout the course of one day - to say hello to them, to catch up, to see them face to face and stay connected. I took that for granted when my company was small. We were like a family ourselves, in the trenches building this business and spending more time together than we actually did with our own families at home. It was hard work but I treasure those time because I had a relationship with my employees that went beyond business.

Today it’s harder. My company has grown by leaps and bounds and I’m thankful for that. There is, however, always a price to pay for growth and my price has been the disconnection from my employees on a personal level. Sure, we see each other from time to time but it’s not the same as it once was and it’s unfortunate in a lot of ways. I decided to do something about it and I’ve really made an effort to put more events on the table - making sure that we get together and do things that are beyond business. This was a family business to start and for me it will always be a family business.

One of the other things that I did was to institute employee incentives - a program that rewards my employees for particular goals that they reach. This has been fruitful on a lot of different levels but, for me, the great part about it has been the ability to connect with my employees again over something that is fun, motivational and companywide. In the next post I’ll talk about the benefits that our employee program has brought to the table for our company…

Popularity: 4% [?]

Share This

We were mostly considered a dark horse in our industry; the new kid on the block that couldn’t hold a candle to the big guys - the established companies with the huge staff that had been in the game for decades. The economy, however, had leveled the playing field and suddenly we found ourselves very much in the game as companies bigger than ours closed their doors. We flew under the radar and were already operating on a shoestring budget when the economy got really bad. This meant that we were somehow able to survive and even continue to grow and as a result we were able to bring on more employees. This was when we first established our employee program; something that gave us the tools that we needed to further grow our company from the inside out. The reasons that we chose an employee recognition program included:

We were growing at a fast rate and this included bringing on additional employees almost on a monthly basis. If we weren’t careful we were going to face possible turnover. We needed to make sure that every new employee was properly trained and given the opportunity to earn incentives for a job well done.

We knew that a rewards program would give us the ability to offer incentives to our existing employees as well as our newest employees. By setting up a tiered employee incentives program we could give our entire employee base the motivation they needed to achieve spectacular goals.

We needed to be able to discuss and identify the company’s goals. With so much going on and so much growth happening on a daily basis, things could get scattered easily. Having an employee program in place gave us a reason to discuss goals and priorities and articulate those objectives to our employees.

More in the next post…

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

In the last post I talked about the position that our company was in - facing a struggling economy and lowered profits we had to choose a salary freeze for all our employees. This, by no means, was a popular decision but the fact was that many others in the same position throughout the industry were simply losing their jobs. Our employees were happy to be employed and they understood that in freezing our salaries and keeping things status quo for awhile we could potentially coast through this time period until we were in a better position. Our employees understood our predicament and they knew that we would bring them back up to speed the very minute that we were in a position to do so. Until then, we had our employee incentives program to ease the pain of salary freezes. The employee incentives program had been in place for three years running and was absolutely one of the best things about our company. We had set out goals for our employees to achieve and those that did month to month were eligible for particular prizes that we had chosen in advance. The prize tiers changed according to what we needed them to be - based on our budget and the interests of our employees. This was a great thing as we could adjust the prizes - even when we were really struggling like we were at the moment.

What we found is that even though the prizes were more modest than they had been in the past, the employee rewards program continued to operate as it had all along - motivating employees, promoting an enthusiastic workplace, opening lines of communication between employees and management, reducing turnover, and increasing production. Our employee recognition program has been and will continue to be a big part of what we offer as a company and will see us through to a much better economy.

Popularity: 43% [?]

Share This

There is nothing that is going to be even remotely popular about a salary freeze, no matter what the industry. Except, of course, if the salary freeze is in lieu of massive companywide layoffs. This was our situation. Like every other business we had taken a huge hit in the current economic conditions and we were doing anything and everything to find a way around laying off employees. The last thing we wanted to do was put someone who had worked so hard for us on the unemployment line - and simultaneously short staff our company and potentially harm our production. So we chose a salary freeze across the board. If we could keep our overhead relatively stationary, we had more of a chance of surviving the economy and getting our employees back where they belonged financially. As you might expect, the salary freeze was not well received but it was certainly preferable to layoffs. Plus, our employee incentives program helped ease the pain.

Our employee recognition program was implemented about three years ago and it had been widely popular right from the start. It essentially identified goals that the company wanted employees to achieve and those who achieved at that level were eligible to win prize incentives that had been chosen to correspond to the company’s goals. We had kept the prize incentives well within our budget and had continued to do so. Even now, while were doing all that we could to save money, we were still invested in the employee program. We were not spending outside our means and we knew even modest prize incentives meant a lot to our employees. While we instituted a salary freeze, we kept the rewards program in place as a sign of faith for our employees - a way to show them that we were invested in keeping them working with us and earning money. We knew that the employee incentives program would help us rally our employees when the economy eventually turned the corner. More in the next post…

Popularity: 46% [?]

Share This

Managing a company of any size comes with its own challenges to be sure. There are many things to deal with on a daily basis and making sure that employees’ needs are met is certainly one of them; a significant factor indeed. If employee morale is low then there’s the opportunity for production to be low. A solid employee base can make or break a company; there’s no denying it. Of course good management techniques go a long way towards making sure that a company is doing all that it can for the good of their employees and solid employee incentives can work in tandem with good management.

An employee incentives program allows a company to set goals and match the achievement of those goals with particular prize incentives. Employee recognition programs are effective across the board but the best thing about them is that they can be effective regardless of the prizes; meaning that a company with a smaller budget can still work within that budget - scaling prizes to match - and still get great results. Conversely, companies with larger budgets can adjust their prizes accordingly and still achieve success. In fact, companies can change their prize incentives as much as they want/need in order to work within their budget and still maintain a viable employee recognition program.

A rewards program should be one of the resources that a good management team uses to keep their company operating on solid ground. Companies will find - that with the right incentives company behind them - they can engage employees in something that makes them feel listened to and appreciated.

Additionally, a management team can make adjustments to their employee recognition program as they go - accounting for budget, changes in staff, goals that the company wants to meet, and much more. When done right, rewards programs can be effective throughout the lifetime of any company.

Popularity: 55% [?]

Share This

In the last post I talked about my reputation as a numbers guy and how I had never been too adept at handling the human side of business. While I was always able to work to my strengths before, now I was in a position where I had to face my weakness because I was the owner of my own company. This wasn’t going to go away; I needed to be able to communicate with and motivate my own employees. The employee recognition program that I put into place helped me do that.

Working with an experienced, reputable company in the industry I was able to put into place something that would really motivate my employees - and would communicate, even when I was not able to adequately do so, how much we appreciated their hard work. The way that the employee program worked was like this:

As a mid-sized company we had hundreds of different goals on a daily basis. Obviously we wanted to grow business and make money but - in addition to sales goals - there were goals that had to do with delivering excellent customer service, keeping the workplace safe and accident-free, and more. We determined which goals were important to us as a company and really spelling it out was enormously helpful.

Once we recognized our goals we were able to match incentives with particular goals. This was the fun part where we could identify which goals were worthy of which incentives and choose the incentive prizes that were within our budget. The great thing about the employee incentives is that we can always make changes based on our budget and how the company grows in the future.

We were then able to communicate this program to our employees which helped me specifically because I had something exciting to share. This would mark a new era for me in terms of improving my role as owner and manager.

Popularity: 62% [?]

Share This

There are many challenges in business; many obstacles that business owners face in not only keeping things up and running smoothly but achieving success. Finances are always something to consider obviously and can make or break operations but so too can a variety of circumstances. Sometimes it is clear what needs to be fixed and even how it can be overcome; but sometimes the road to recovery is more subjective. Employee morale, for instance, can seriously impact business operations but it can be difficult for business owners and management to know how best to approach this dilemma. For us, we found recovery through an employee recognition program.

We are certainly not immune to the current economic conditions and they have seriously impacted our operations but not in the way that you might expect. The tightening of our belts - and the atmosphere of this economic downturn - had taken its toll on our employees and lowered morale was what was ultimately impacting our business. Production was down because employees had lost their fire; they felt like no matter what they did nothing changed and we were not able to compensate them monetarily which was making people even more upset.

We decided to try something that had been suggested to us - an employee incentives program through which we could formally recognize the efforts of our employees by rewarding them with a variety of prize incentives from which they could choose. We didn’t need to be extravagant in choosing these prizes; we could work within our budget and still provide our employees a great selection of prizes. Just making this effort could affect morale and put us in a better place with our employees; something that we desperately needed if we were going to make it through this time. What we didn’t count on was how much an employee recognition program would change everything. More in the next post…

Popularity: 72% [?]

Share This

When we first put our employee incentives program into place I was working with very little money and still a very strong desire to help motivate employees and raise morale. It didn’t take much to understand the strong connection between employee morale and solid production. Employees who are not happy are typically not working to their full capacity and business as a whole suffers. I wanted a way that I could continually motivate employees and raise my game through the process. An environment that helps to motivate employees helps to fuel business and that was my goal in putting together a rewards program.

An employee recognition program allowed me to put particular goals in place; objectives that I thought were in keeping with our superior standards, whether in sales or safety. Those employees who reached these goals were given the opportunity to choose from among a selection of rewards - or prizes - offered through the employee recognition program. In the beginning I didn’t have a big budget for this program but that was the great thing about it; I could still show my employees that I appreciated their hard work and offer them a prize that was substantial without breaking the bank.

I can tell you that our employee incentives program was a hit from the beginning. Obviously everyone is working for a salary - but when you throw something extra into the mix, even something small, it’s often just the spark that people need to hit the ground running.

Now that my company has grown (in no small part to the hard work of my employees) I am able to grow and change our employee incentives program - offering bigger prizes that will hopefully keep our company strong and thriving well into the future. I do not regret implementing an employee program and I’m happy that I’m able to make it an even better program for my employees year after year.

Popularity: 62% [?]

Share This

I have never asked to get rich doing what I’m doing. I love my job, I love to come to work and I’m passionate about what I do. The most I have ever asked is to be recognized for my efforts; for those who I work for to see what I do day to day and to appreciate the hard work and passion I bring to the table every day. I have worked for the same company for over a decade and for most of that time I have felt truly appreciated by management. Over the last several years, however, as I have watched ownership change hands, I have felt rather ignored by management. I started to feel as though nothing I was doing was making any difference. Plus, with finances being what they have been none of us have gotten a raise in nearly two years. It was getting frustrating. Then my company put together an employee recognition program.

Basically how it works is like this…company management had a company wide meeting in which we were given the ground rules. They identified certain goals that they wanted to reach during the course of a year and showed us that if we reached the goals that they had set up that we would have the opportunity to choose a prize from our prize incentives.

This employee incentives program gave me the motivation that I needed - the spark that I was missing. We were finally given the clear definition of what management was looking for - the goals that we were all looking to achieve. I was able to re-focus my energies and work towards the goals at hand, knowing that I could have the opportunity to choose a great prize - from electronics to weekend trips. I know that this employee program has worked for me and I feel as though we are once again being recognized for our efforts.

Popularity: 77% [?]

Share This