According to a research report by Bersin & Associates, organizations with effective employee recognition programs experience 31% lower turnover rates.
This is a huge incentive for CEOs and HR professionals to get on board with launching powerful employee rewards initiatives. The only problem is that, according to the same survey, many employees aren’t aware such programs exist.
If nobody knows about your program, it doesn’t matter how incredible your employee rewards are. And if your company is currently spending a good portion of the budget on this popular benefit, you need to make sure every penny is producing real results in the form of increased employee satisfaction, productivity, and engagement.
Here are three easy steps to increase your employee involvement.
3 Tips For Increasing Employee Involvement
Tip #1: Get Employee Input
If you want more employee involvement in your incentive program, you need to involve your employees in its creation.
Start by getting feedback from your employees. Through one-on-one conversations, small group discussions, or anonymous surveys, solicit their opinions on questions like:
- How often do you receive recognition for a job well done at our company? How often would you like to be recognized?
- Which task(s) would you like to be recognized for completing?
- Which rewards mean the most to you as an employee?
- Would you rather receive cash bonuses, physical gifts, or something else as a reward?
- What has been your favorite employee incentive program to date?
Work with your employees to envision an incentive program that offers rewards that really matter to them. Let them choose the goal posts and rewards. Then, give them even more ownership by coming up with the program name together as a collective team.
Most employee incentive programs are announced and enforced from above—but if you make this a collaborative effort with all of your employees, you’ll notice a serious uptick in participation.
Tip #2: Frame the Benefits
When incentive programs feel disingenuous to employees, it usually means they’re not framed correctly. Quota programs and daily competitions often seem like poorly-masked efforts to push employees harder and squeeze more revenue out of each individual. That feels like extra work to your team members, who are already working hard each day for their salary.
Yes, one goal of an employee rewards program is to incentivize your teams to work harder and produce more output. However, that shouldn’t be your top priority.
Instead, choose an incentive program that will be an invaluable benefit to your employees and frame it as such. Iterate and reiterate that these rewards are designed to make coming to work more fun for everyone. The primary goals include helping each individual feel more engaged in their work, more satisfied with their job, and more appreciated for the progress they make.
The best way to get your point across is through consistent communication and effective marketing.
Try getting your employees involved in this part of the process as well! Set aside a couple of hours for team building on a Friday afternoon, and challenge your employees to film the best promotional video for your company’s new incentive program. Inter-team competition strongly encouraged! Engage their help in creating witty and eye-catching posters for the program, and display the best materials in hallways and bathroom stalls.
Have fun with this, and your employees will too.
Tip #3: Set Meaningful Goals
At this point, you’ve done your best to make the employee incentive program popular across your company. Now, it’s time to involve your team members on an individual level and make this program something they’re excited to participate in.
All too often, incentives only rain down on the top 5% of achievers in a company. Those employees-of-the-month, big deal closers, and president’s club winners are used to earning bonuses and recognition. But a great incentive program motivates and rewards employees at all levels.
The first step is making sure each role (and each level of experience) has appropriate, measurable, and challenging goals.
Start this process with your management staff. Work together to identify the top three priorities for each role in your company, and project what it would look like for each role to stretch slightly in growth. That’s where your first incentive program goals should be.
From there, you’ll rely on your well-designed employee recognition program to consistently set new goals as each one is met. The bar is raised ever higher, even for your highest achieving employees.
The best incentive program challenges your employees over time and provides that intangible sense of drive and passion that traditional rewards lack.
Getting Started
The most important thing to remember when launching any employee incentive is quality. No amount of marketing magic and creative brainstorming will save an outdated or unintuitive employee rewards initiative. Start with a high-quality program that has been tested and proven to increase employee involvement across the board, and you’ll have to work a lot less to get your employees to participate.
With a fantastic employee incentive program and the powerful tips explained here, you’ll be well on your way toward having the kind of benefits package that employees everywhere dream about.
At Inproma, we create fully custom employee incentive programs that are proven to increase employee satisfaction and productivity across a wide range of industries. We’re passionate about helping people love coming to work every day—and because our incentive programs blend seamlessly into your corporate structure, you hardly have to put forth any effort to produce that incredible outcome. Interested in getting your company involved with a custom program of your own? Let’s talk.
