The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
Where is the Employee Motivation?
If you are a CEO, boss, company, or hiring manager, or you work in Human Resources, you know that a good employee is not always easy to find. You have been trained to look out for some signs on what makes a good employee and what would probably make a bad employee.
The employee you hire is usually a reflection on you. Sometimes you may hire an employee who works hard in the beginning and then something happens a few months later, they get lazy, bored, and start to slack in their work. You may think that it is not your fault, and it probably isn’t, because you did your best to analyze the employee before you hired them.
However, while your boss or bosses may forgive you, you know the cost of hiring an employee who has been fired costs money, as you now have to find and train a new employee, and when a company loses money, the fault lies with someone and somewhere.
On the other hand, you may hire the best employee who gets trained and does the best they can do, exceeding in ranks, driving in company profits, coming up with innovative ideas, and working their way up to become the exceptional employee of the company. For this type of employee, you take pride in having hired them, presenting to your boss the results of this employee’s work because you did hire them, and you made a great choice.
What if you knew that this employee or other employees would go above and beyond just by adding in a few extra bonuses into their life? What if the employee who did not turn out so well could be turned into the best employee, just by adding a few extra bonuses in their life?
Just as important, as there are plenty of websites where former or current employees can rank and review the companies to work, if you added these bonuses, that you became one of the best companies to work for? Why wouldn’t you take advantage of adding these simple bonuses for all employees?
Here are just a few ideas to add those bonuses to employee life which will create incentive, motivation, and overall satisfaction and happiness with not only the job they are doing, but the company as well.
Quarter Cash – Each quarter, if your company is doing well, making profit, why wouldn’t the company give its employees a small piece of the pie?
Employee Complimentary – Why not allow employees to compliment each other with a rewarding certificate on what they have done, why they have done it, and the goals and values the employees represents, which displays the companies own values. Greater incentive to get employees to do this would mean that those Certificates of Recognition can be made redeemable for cash, in the form of $5, $10, $20, or $50.
Company Lunch or Dinner – How often does a company take their employees out? It’s rare, but the gesture of bringing a group of exemplary employees out for lunch or dinner, including allowing them to indulge in some alcoholic beverages during the course of lunch or dinner can go a long way in their respect for the company as well as their desire to ensure the company is successful. Alcoholic consumption, of course, should be within reason, especially if during the lunch period.
Family Picnic – There are very few companies who do this, but once a year, a picnic for the employee and their families will go a very long way. Yes, it sounds expensive, but the items for a basic BBQ include: Hotdogs and Hamburgers, Chicken, Corn, Chips. Really? It’s not that expensive to throw a huge picnic for the great employees who are making you money. Best of all, the company does not have to provide alcoholic beverages and can state a BYOB policy, since your company may not want to be liable for alcohol and children in the same place.
Yearly Bonus – This goes without saying, that if your company has done well for the year, exceeded all its goals, your employees deserve some monetary recognition.
Personal Award Recognition Certificates – Companies who recognize the individual work their employees do and assign certificates to those employees will see the results of better working employees. Personalized Awards will go along way. For example, if an employee worked with a specific client and received the highest compliments, making your company look good, wouldn’t you show appreciation to that employee, who made the entire company look magnificent?
Personal Time Off (PTO) – If you are not a company that offers employees Paid Time Off or Vacation Time, you really should consider allowing your employees some extra time off, a day here, a day there, and actually pay them for it.
I used to find it funny and childish that my own company hangs up photos of working professionals throughout the office, under categories of the company values they represented at one time or another.
There is only one other place that kind of thing is often seen: Kindergarten and Grade schools.
Isn’t it childish to do such a thing?
The truth about what any employee wants from any company: We all, as employees, want and love recognition, whether it is monetary, certification, award, a pat on the back, or food. So really, it’s not childish at all, and if it is, aren’t we all just children pretending to be adults anyway?
Are you doing enough to make sure your employees are happy working for your company?
