Rewarding your employees is the perfect way to motivate them. Yet 82% of U.S. employees report that they don’t feel recognized often enough for their efforts. Rewarding your employees is critical for everything from increasing production to retaining your workforce. Here are some suggestions for how to recognize your teams and support their efforts on the job.
What Are The Benefits of Rewarding Your Employees?
Why Are Rewards So Rewarding?
According to the latest research,79% of employees say that being recognized makes them work harder while 78% say they are more productive after they’ve received the reward. This trend is particularly relevant for the Gen Z ad millennial populations, who want constant feedback to help motivate their behaviors. Chron Small Business says, “Millennials consider rewards as essential to their happiness at work, meaning that employers have a responsibility to incorporate reward and recognition programs into their companies If they want to attract and retain younger workers.”
Tips for Rewarding Your Workforce
The first tip for rewarding your workforce is to tie this effort to key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are highly effective for establishing benchmarks for employee behaviors. It’s a good way to help set goals and help your workforce understand how their productivity impacts the business and their rewards for working hard. Make sure these KPIs reward both small and big behaviors. An annual goal only defers gratification; you need quarterly, monthly, weekly or even daily goal recognition to keep motivating your teams. You can also use these metrics to reward team behavior in addition to individual activities.
But setting KPIs isn’t enough. Are you sure your employees understand how to hit their goals and receive rewards? Employees need to understand how they can achieve these milestones. You can help by setting up a dashboard where certain milestones are tracked. Your team can also talk openly about achieving your goals. Exelare has this dashboard baked into our software as a standard part of our offering. Managers and employees can see at a glance how their performance is going.
The rewards themselves should be unique and appealing to your staff. It doesn’t always have to be a financial reward. Today, more employees than ever want flex time or the ability to work remotely a few days a week. Some employees may prefer a catered lunch or a special time out with colleagues and friends. The idea is to reward the employee with something that they value, but also use the reward to publicly recognize the employee in front of their peers. While the employee may act self-effacing, the truth is that public praise likely pleases them more often than not.
Do You Reward Your Employees?
Exelare knows a thing or two about tracking employee behaviors and rewarding their best work. We offer our clients a state-of-the-art applicant tracking system that gives employers the tools they need to reward their workforce. Contact us today.
