Are your employees not as engaged as you'd like them to be? Perhaps the rewards you're offering leave much to be desired. Here's what you're doing wrong and how to fix it.
Your “Rewards” Aren’t Appreciated By Your Employees
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Where I work, if they want to say "thanks" for hard work or it's been a particularly rough time, they'll often give us a random casual day or week. It costs the company nothing, but most of us really appreciate it. We love being able to wear our jeans!
Other things I've gotten that I particularly appreciated were gift cards to a coffee shop (for a small thank you), and a Visa gift card good at any store in a local large mall. That kind of gift card can work, because there are a lot of places to use it. It just takes a bit of thought and maybe some creativity.
What floors me is how obvious this stuff is and yet few seem to understand it.
Once someone becomes a manager, do they forget all the things former bosses did to them that made them resentful and motivated them to do the least amount of work possible? Is there some sort of lobotomy that goes with the promotion? Pens? Mugs? Gift Certificates!? Really?!
My favorite is when we all took huge cuts "because of the company" and then at the huge Xmas party at the boss's compound, er, "home" he was showing off all the new art he had just purchased because the business was doing so well.
At the root of it all, it's not even about the money - it's about R E S P E C T. If I work hard for you then you better reward that labor.
When you speak to other professionals, why do they have these blinders? Are they simply caught up in a world of silly business books and management double-speak and forget to ground themselves? Or do they figure that the folks under them simply don't matter?
This sentence really rings some bells for me "If the business honestly cannot afford either one (and before you nod your head to that, check your own bonus check) then see above or below."
At my last job all the employees got a $30 Christmas bonus (from manager to entry-level), except for the Vice President (owner's daughter), who got $8,000.
My company has "Good Work Coupons" that anyone can give a coworker. It's an online form. Just fill out the coworker's name, your name, the date, and what the coworker did to earn it. Then email it to the coworker and CC their direct supervisor. Best part: the coupons are redeemable in the company cafeteria for a cookie (or piece of fruit or yogurt cup). Our cafeteria's bakers are really good, too, so the cookie of the day is reliably tasty. I LOVE Good Work Coupons and I give them out all the time. It costs the company next to nothing and encourages people to recognize each other's efforts.
My first clue that I did not fit in at all in the corporate culture of a job I once had: The manager gave out these cheesy "First place" and "#1" ribbons that came from a dollar store (across the street) as rewards. This was a huge company, and getting a "I'm great!" ribbon pinned on me like I was some kid at the Last Day of School Olympic Games was not a reward. I honestly thought it was a joke and started laughing. No one else did; they were all serious and considered that a reward. I threw the tacky thing away at my desk (after the meeting), and apparently it hurt my manager's feelings. This was after I had worked hard during the day and at late nights and had gone for weeks eating lunch (and sometimes dinner) in my office as I kicked ass on an important project. I wasn't eager to give up my own time and put in that kind of effort again, and I found another job and moved away. I don't give my time and talent and skill and hard work away for an average salary and a dollar-store ribbon.
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