Meaningful Employee Incentives can be Cost Effective and Simple

The most common employee incentives used by organizations are often monetary rewards, such as gift cards, bonuses, and even cold hard cash. However, this method of rewarding employees may not always be the best because you are assigning a value to your employees work. Giving a $50 gift card for a job well done, tells an employee that you valued their extra effort exactly $50 worth. What if your employee thought their extra effort or time away from their family was worth more than $50 dollars? If this is the case, the gift card reward went from improving employee morale to fostering employee resentment… How do you avoid this?

Instead of monetary rewards, consider using forms of employee appreciation that are simple and from the heart. If you are recognizing an employee for going above and beyond on a project, move past the typical praise from a manager or boss and offer a hand written letter from the CEO. Greater levels of appreciation can be shown by activities including the CEO or executive team taking the respective employee out to lunch. Personal employee incentives like these are cost effective, help to transcend the gap between employees and upper management, and most importantly have a high intrinsic value for the employee.

Consider implementing simple forms of employee recognition into your business plan to increase employee satisfaction and improve employee engagement. As always, stay tuned to Boost Rewards Backstage for the latest news, info, and ideas in employee rewards, recognition, and wellness solutions.