Rewarding Staff's Work - Fleximize

How to Reward Staff

Easy tips on starting an employee of the month scheme

By Marcia Smith

Rewarding staff performance

Offering rewards for good performance can be an excellent way to motivate staff and get the best out of them. However, some employee reward programmes are more effective than others.

To be effective, you first need rewards that the employees really want, and which you can afford. Bonuses are great, but can be costly. Be aware the monetary incentives to do not necessarily lead to an increase or motivation or productivity in all cases. Much research has been done on this, so have a look around to see whether it would work for you.

Secondly, you need to clearly define how employees can earn rewards. This could be something like a sales target or mystery shopper test, and it’s best if it can be easily measured. It should also be transparent, so all employees can trust that the process is fair.

Employee of the month

An employee of the month programme can be a great way of motivating your staff and rewarding high performance.

To make sure your scheme is effective, you need to make it clear to staff what they need to do to increase their chances of being selected as employee of the month. You should also make sure that the scheme is administered fairly. If winners are simply chosen at random, or if staff suspect favouritism, this could render the scheme worthless.

It’s also a good idea to make sure that the winner receives proper recognition. This could be a certificate, a small gift from the boss or even bonus payment.