Nine Ways to Improve Your Employee Recognition This Year
Keeping your employees motivated and content is one of the hardest tasks female entrepreneurs face when running a busy company. While you might already have some bonus schemes tied to customer satisfaction and targets, you might want to take your employee recognition to the next level to suit your business better and meet the expectations of your staff. Highly engaged and motivated employees are more productive, committed to your company, and will stay with you longer. Find out below what you can do to keep them happy by improving your recognition program.
Team Competitions
You can set up in-house competitions and get teams to work together on different projects. If the team works well and improves the internal communication, they are more likely to succeed and win. Creating a good relationship and atmosphere within the company is a good way of engaging with employees. Whether you want to make two teams compete against each other, or would like to compare the performance of individuals, you can motivate each individual to do their best for the reward you have to offer. Teams can be motivated by a night out funded by the company, or early finish, for example.
Clear Targets
Many entrepreneurs make a mistake when creating employee recognition programs by not setting clear targets and being accused of favoritism. It is important that your employee recognition program is detailed and explained in your company policy. Look for a simple and cost-effective method to manage your policies and procedure and add your new rewards and targets, to communicate clearly with your workforce. Once employees know what is expected of them, they will be more likely to aim higher.
Learning Goals
It is also important for running a successful business to nurture your talent and build organizational assets. If you set your employees learning goals, and provide them with the right support through coaching and training, they can deliver more value for you and your customers. If you provide them with a little reward for meeting their learning goals, they will be more willing to learn new skills and teach others to hit the target.
Customer Surveys
You cannot rely on your own judgment and analysis when it comes to evaluating employee performance. If you implement regular customer surveys and ask for feedback on every employee, you can judge everyone in your organization in a more realistic way. The employee who gets the most positive feedback from customers can receive a cash or non-monetary reward each month. This intervention will not only improve your customer satisfaction, but also employee morale, practices, and your reputation as well.
Anonymous Nominations
To take your “employee of the month” program to the next level, you might want to ask your workers to nominate their colleagues. This will help you make a realistic decision based on feedback, and you don’t have to use peer evaluation that can cause friction between employees. In some cases, peer evaluationn can be unrealistic, and colleagues who get on well will be reluctant to criticize others, while they will be more likely to speak up if they have to rate someone they don’t know or like much. However, if you can use anonymous forms, you can avoid this risk.
Introducing Promotion Credits
One of the creative ways you can use to improve employee satisfaction is creating different credits for completing tasks, volunteering with projects, or simply helping others. Assign a different value for each job completed and support provided, and monitor your talent. Promotion credits will help you spot talent and leader material, so you can make an informed decision all the time when a managerial position comes up. Consider employees who have enough promotion credits for new roles, or even trial jobs.
New Perks for Every Success
If you are feeling creative, you could also introduce perk charts. Hitting the target three times in a row, for example, reward your employees with extra holidays. If they complete a training voluntarily, they can get to train others and receive credits for their contribution. Make sure that you are aware of what takes your business to the next level, and assign perks to each process in the team.
Added Responsibilities
Sometimes, all employees are looking for is more responsibility. You might be able to motivate them better if you ditch the cash rewards and vouchers, and give them something they would like. Allow them to take part in managing a new project, coming up with ideas on the latest product, or help you out with research. You can get potential managers to conduct employee and customer surveys, and analyze the results. This will help you evaluate their leadership skills, and they can grow up to their next task if you give them enough opportunities.
Let Them Choose
Unless you are a mind-reader, you will not know exactly what your employees really want from their job and you as a manager. If you would like to be in the picture, conduct surveys and set up a suggestion box outside your office. You can find out what your employees really want in the office if you allow them to hold their own meetings and report back to you. Remember that your own priorities might have nothing to do with theirs. Whether they would like to get unlimited coffee for hitting the team target, training, or coaching roles, let them tell you. When setting up rewards, you can also give employees a choice of two or three options. A busy single mother might not appreciate a night out, but they will love clothes shopping vouchers.
To motivate your employees better through recognition and training, you first need to find out exactly what makes them tick. Personalize the targets, rewards, and use the opportunity to spot talent and future leaders. Whether you are setting up team competitions or want to reward your best employees with leadership training and one-on-one coaching, you have to make sure that you find the right balance between cash rewards and professional development opportunities.
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