Achieving employee motivation can be hard during periods of financial difficulty, particularly if your business has been forced to make redundancies and other cutbacks. And losing employee motivation means you are also likely to lose productivity, which in turn leads to falling sales and then more cutbacks.
However, one way in which you can boost motivation, productivity, retention and commitment is through a great employee recognition program. Many workplaces will offer some kind of recognition program, however if the rewards seem unattainable or unattractive to employees, the program won’t succeed. To get a really great recognition program, you need to appeal to all of your employees and their many different tastes. Allowing employees to choose their own reward from a catalogue, such as vouchers for different retailers, for example, ensures that everyone is rewarded with something that they want and can use.
Make sure that the goal your employees need to reach is worth the effort, even if that means offering a smaller reward for a smaller effort. Also make sure that everyone in the organisation has the opportunity of going after a reward. There is no point having one star player bringing home reward after reward while all the others who helped him get to that point receive nothing, as this will only create resentment and discord among the team.
While employees will surely appreciate a physical reward such as a gift voucher or trophy, don’t underestimate the power of a simple ‘well done’. Verbal praise can still be a great motivator.
