Employees are the lifeblood of an organisation. An organisation could be selling the most effective product or service in the world but without good staff it is lost. An employee reward scheme is an effective and engaging way to show appreciation for the hard work of an organisation's most vital asset: its employees.
Get it right and a rewards scheme can help improve employee engagement, loyalty and even impact the bottom line. Before an organisation embarks on an employee rewards and incentive programme, there are four golden rules to take on board: purpose; empowerment; meaningful reward; communication.
Know the purpose of the scheme
Organisations should be clear why they want to roll out an employee reward and incentive programme. This isn’t rocket science, but it is an essential first step. Organisations should be clear about why they are looking to launch an incentive; they may wish to simply show appreciation for another successful year, or celebrate the completion of a particularly challenging project, a simple morale booster, or to attract and keep existing hard workers. All of these need similar yet considered approaches.
Knowing the purpose will help organisations decide what type of incentive to offer. Ask some pertinent questions about the logistics of the scheme: do you want to reward high performers, or the whole team? Do you want to motivate employees to reward and acknowledge their own colleagues? Or are you simply looking for instant rewards that have meaning and are ideal as a heartfelt thank you?
Timing is a factor too, so consider seasonal impact; will the scheme be tied in with a Christmas party, team away day, the conclusion of a project or as a long service award? The incentive scheme also needs to be transparent and easy to use.
Empower employees
Rewarding employees empowers, and can really motivate a workforce but it is important to do it right and get employee buy in. Once an organisation knows why it wants to reward and motivate employees, it should get them on board from the outset and keep them involved all the way through the campaign.
A vox pop can be useful to see what incentives would inspire staff; be sure to communicate results of the initial think tanks back to them. Regular updates will keep staff interested right up to the launch and afterwards too.
Organisations should make sure they take feedback on board and implement it into their programme; people will lose interest if they don’t feel they have been listened to. Involve employees in the initial design of the scheme from how it will operate and who makes decisions, to how rewards are communicated.
Do not ignore the power of truly meaningful rewards
A good benefit is something meaningful and memorable, that will create memories that will stick with employees. A few examples of staff incentives include: team building activity days; incentive travel or weekends away; cash bonuses; high street vouchers; peer nominations and employee of the month rewards; time off for duvet days; charity directives such as giving employees time off to support a charity of their choice.
Each of these incentives works in the right environment. Cash bonuses can be useful and tempting, particularly in the run up to January because they help clear those expanded Christmas bills. However, this is double-edged because staff are usually coy about talking about money, so the incentive scheme almost operates out of sight, losing valuable communication benefit. Cash will also get lost in the payslip and spent on basics.
So try to choose an incentive that creates talkability and memories that last a lot longer than a pot of money. People will talk openly about this kind of reward too, which in turn encourages other team members to do well.
Group travel incentives are a great way to honour employees. Having teams travel together allows them to mark the occasion and experience the trip as one. In turn, this cements a strong bond between colleagues. It doesn’t have to be expensive and the payback lasts a long time.
Communicate, talk, share and promote
Finally, there is one last step that mustn’t be forgotten: communication. This is the cement that makes the campaign come alive, gets people excited and keeps them interested in the reward scheme throughout its life.
Promote schemes or initiatives, send round-robin emails, flyers, and posters. When the programme is in full swing, celebrate the winners. So many schemes fail on this one aspect alone; they have a well thought-out programme but don't do the communications to deliver great results and, more importantly, a return on investment.
Keep the interest in the chosen incentive schemes lively and regular. To stop it becoming dull for those involved, change up the routine a bit every so often. Organisations could even consider a new incentive scheme every year or 18 months.
Bill Alexander is chief executive officer at Red Letter Days for Business
