As Northwestern University School of Management professor, Dylan Minor, points out; the problem with incentives is that one size doesn’t fit all. This is true on both a personal and a company level. No two people will be driven by exactly the same thing. Some may even be driven by completely different incentives. While some will put hours of personal effort into team-oriented incentives, others will strive to attain an individual bonus.
What’s your “incentive culture”?
The type of business and the type of roles within that organization will also affect which incentives generate the most benefit. Is your company’s focus on getting the absolute maximum from each individual staff member in isolation? Or will your business benefit more from enhancing connection, communication, and collaboration amongst staff?
Settling on an incentive program that really works is no mean feat – and it’s also something that will need to be reviewed regularly. Once an incentive has been attained, how can your business ensure employees continually have something to strive for? If the novelty of a particular benefit wears off, how can you keep your staff motivated with a fresh goal to aim for?
For some organizations, setting targets with benefits is the wrong approach altogether. Fostering competitiveness and using somewhat subjective goalposts can foster the wrong kind of company culture altogether. In these contexts, cultivating an “incentivizing atmosphere” where staff feel cared for and valued is a more effective approach.
So how can your business select an approach to incentives which will get the absolute best out of your greatest asset; your staff? We’ve hand-picked three very different incentives to help you tick different boxes…
1. Give “idea bonuses”
Want to bring more creativity into your workplace? Perhaps you’d like your employees to get more involved in your company culture. Ideas bonuses (as suggested in this article) can be run on a regular basis, encouraging employees to contribute fully-fledged plans and ideas for improving your company. At the end of each period, a vote can be held, with a financial (or alternative) prize for the highest voted idea. You may decide that you want to put this new plan into action or tweak it a little before making it part of your operations. You could even call for ideas to tackle specific issues, or to target particular areas.
2. Offer on-site benefits
Employees who feel valued and well looked after are more likely to have greater company loyalty and more likely to perform more powerfully in the workplace. On-site benefits also give staff a greater incentive to show up every day. They can even incentivize staff to lead healthier lifestyles (fantastic for reducing sick leave).
There is an endless array of ways businesses can make staff feel valued and well-treated with on-site benefits. From monthly massages and weekly yoga classes to free fresh fruit baskets supplied to the office (more on this service here) and even after-work classes in your staff’s areas of interest (from Japanese to photography). Invest in your teams’ workplace happiness, and you could get much more from your employees.
3. Nurture competition
Want each staff member to generate as many sales, conversions, or leads as possible? Nurturing a little healthy competition is a good incentive. Rather than one “top prize” for your best performer (as one strong performer can leave lower-performing staff feeling demotivated), have staggered rewards that suit your workplace’s dynamics. Make sure you ask your team which rewards they’d find most motivating to get the most from this incentive style.
4. Embrace flexible working
In the wake of lockdowns affecting the world over it seems the ‘work-from-home culture shift is here to stay. Where possible, it’s best to invest trust in your workforce to allow them the freedom to work from home or at least offer flexible working from home on certain days of the week. It is now well documented that allowing staff to work from home not only increases mental well-being but many employers also reported an increase in efficiency and quality of work.