Friday, 27 July 2012 0 comments

Staff Motivation Programs


Staff motivation is a world-wide issue that is common to every industry. Staff turnover is affected by several external factors and there is so far no exact method to measure its impact. However, we believe the key to retention is engagement.  

Staff motivation has little to do with money or salary packages and more to do with company culture and values being lived out on a daily basis. Employee engagement results in effective and productive staff that love what they do, ultimately increasing staff loyalty.

Recruiting to replace an existing staff member is a costly exercise and can decrease productivity levels for up to six months, until the employee is up to speed with the role they have taken on. Therefore, it is particularly crucial for SME’s with unfamiliar brands and formal hierarchal structures to get a handle on how to appeal to valued workers that they wish to retain. 

The best solution to lacking employee engagement involves reward and recognition programs such as Power2Motivate and Accumulate. These online rewards programs provide cost effective incentives for all employees of SME’s as well as large firms of any industry and can be customised to match your company’s values, themes and colours. 

Reward and recognition programs are by far the best approach to boosting employee consistency as they allow performance targets to be set by managers and employees themselves through KPI’s. Employees can earn points when targets are met or when performing “over and above” their requirements. Points are then redeemable against rewards including entertainment, electronics, gift cards etc. 

Throughout the rewarding process it is crucial to ensure recognition takes place within the team in order to increase the likelihood of eliciting such behaviour again in the future. Recognition, most importantly will make staff feel valued and important which is essential to improving employee performance and staff motivation.
Other approaches which can improve your company culture to attract long-term, quality staff members are to maintain a flexible workplace environment. Employees have commitments throughout their lives and it is important to create an atmosphere where working flexible hours is not frowned upon or deemed as  not working to one’s full capacity.

Introducing incentives for mothers to be able to work from home, job share arrangements and return to work bonuses are also solutions to establishing an inviting workplace atmosphere.
On-going training, coaching and mentoring as well as making sure each staff member has a career plan set in place is invaluable to staff motivation. A positive environment that fosters growth and future potential within the company will be valued by all employees on their journey to success. 

It is vital for each business leader to communicate their ‘BHAG’ with all employees so as to share a large common goal and be able to transition through the phases of success as a team with the same perspectives and aims. By building business acumen you are ensuring to realise employees responsibilities allowing their skills and abilities to be placed within high regard of the overall company and its goals.
Profit share, virtual employee share Options or Equity gaining strategies can be used for those who are more financially minded. By giving these employees a stake out of the company’s profit you are increasing their participation in the business and sharing the common goals and aims of the company’s top leaders which is often infectious. This will in turn encourage staff motivation

Lastly, it is imperative to emphasise the social, fun side of work. This can be done by implementing quarterly themes alongside your quarterly targets in order to keep everything in perspective. We encourage you to organise quarterly celebrations for the company to participate in as a team. Whether quarterly targets have been met or exceeded should be irrelevant so as to keep encouraging persistence, but will only determine how ‘fun’ or how ‘big’ the celebration should be.

Now that you know the secrets to staff motivation, make sure to implement them within your company and live out your positive company culture and values on a daily basis.

Saturday, 21 July 2012 0 comments

Motivating Employees through Reward and Recognition


Engaging employees in your workplace is important to ensure that they are productive and give you their best every day.  Engaged employees are more productive and less likely to leave their current employers and staff retention is something that every employer is concerned about in today’s employment market.  It is important to know that if you have employees that are not totally engaged in your workplace, you need to put in place ways of motivating them and having them aspire to better performance, effective reward and recognition programs.

All employees appreciate receiving reward and recognition for the contribution they make to the business. Recognising good performance or positive behaviours (like customer service or having a positive work attitude) is a good way of building a positive and collaborative team culture.  Performance recognition can happen in many ways, the overall objective should be to create a culture of recognition. The most common is the provision of a commission or “tips” to employees for sales or service. With a highly competitive labour market, it is becoming more important than ever for employers to consider more consistent and sophisticated methods of motivating and rewarding their employees.

For most employees money is a welcome reward for performance, but it may surprise you to learn that over 78% of employees would spend their bonus money on paying bills and other debts – hardly a lasting reminder of their good performance.  To provide employees with a longer lasting reminder of their performance, many employers are now considering rewarding employees with adventures, products and services that are tailored to the specific tastes of the employee.  For example, several hotels that have high levels of university students working for them have introduced performance incentives around paying for those employee’s HECS fees if they meet service and sales standards.  Other businesses are offering employees holidays, bridge-climbs, books, facials and spa retreats, in order to motivate them.

 There are several keys to effective reward and recognition:
-          Establish some clearly defined performance measures, or key performance indicators, that are tangible and measurable
-          Communicate clearly to the employees what is expected of them and the desired level of performance of their duties
-          Ensure that employees understand what rewards are available to them for meeting or exceeding their performance goals
-          Undertake regular performance reviews with employees so they know how they are tracking against their targets (you may want to consider quarterly reviews)


Don’t forget, performance indicators do not have to be individual, you can establish business goals, team goals and individual goals to ensure everyone understands that their role contributes to the overall organisational performance. Reward and recognition should also be given to employees who display desirable behaviours that link to company culture and objectives; this will help to cultivate the behaviours you want your employees to repeat.

Celebrate the wins openly with all employees.  This will allow those who miss their performance rewards to aspire towards being celebrated in the next round, as well as providing public reward and recognition of the great performance of those who are hitting their targets.



 
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