Job satisfaction surveys and research have consistently shown that income levels is only a moderately useful indicator of employee happiness. Other, intangible factors play a large role in how employees feel in the workplace. Staff engagement is linked to how they feel about other employees and how the business treats them.
With employee morale so important for getting employees to be engaged with the business, what can business owners do, to reward their staff without breaking the budget? Here are five ideas to reward your employees.
One: Team-Building games
Team building games are a good way to build employee relations while adding staff skills and accomplishment. However, there is difficulty in creating interesting, engaging activities, compared to those these that are just dull.
Having a well-planned and executed team building experience can be invaluable to your business. However, it can be devilishly hard to strike the right balance between events that are entertaining for all and just plain dull. The key to planning events is to ensure that the staff have fun, activities such as orienteering, scavenger hunts or competitive games work well for diversified workplaces.
Two: Food and Lunches
Having a fortnightly or even monthly-catered lunch is an effective way to bring the office together to boost morale. Ordering sandwiches or pizza is an effective way to get staff together on premise without breaking the budget.
Three: Discounts or Benefits
Offering staff discounts on ‘what you do’ can be fruitful and an incentivising reward to employees. Discount schemes work better in some industries more effectively than others, but offering discounts shows your employees that you care and helps to motivate them.
Four: Be open to Flexibility
Potential employees are becoming much more critical when choosing employers and flexible working hours is fast becoming an expectation. Of course, this works more efficiently in certain industries, but offering time off for time in lieu and work-from-home days are two of the most effective ways of having flexible working policies.
Using flexible work hours as a reward system is a good way to keep employees motivated and feeling valued in the business.
Five: Treat employees as responsible adults
The best way to reward staff can often be simply to treat them as responsible adults and to improve their working environment. Give trusted staff more variety and responsibility in their work and they will in turn work more effectively.
How else can you reward staff? One way is to pay for training courses, which allow staff to invest in their personal and professional development. In return, employees can add value to the business with new skills and renewed enthusiasm.
A much-overlooked point is that when staff are doing a great job, as a business manager you should acknowledge their performance! Too often in today’s hectic world, appraisals and performance reviews focus on what staff cannot do instead of recognising their worthy achievements.
If you are unsure what rewards would best motivate your staff, the best bet is to ask your employees. Asking gives your employees what they want most and will mean they will be better motivated for your business.
Employee job satisfaction is rarely linked to the income level. Studies have consistently shown that workplace variety and a strong sense of teamwork, added with rewarding performance and responsibility, leads towards optimum staff engagement. It follows then, that staff rewards need to be inclusive and varied whilst letting your staff know they are recognised and appreciated.