Many employers think that employee reward is basically not firing them. It’s like the 1980’s called and they want their employment rights back. Unfortunately, times have changed and society has moved on. Most (not all) employers realise now that old-fashioned bullying tactics don’t cut it with a workforce that appreciates rewards in the form of recognition of their efforts.
DRESSING DOWN WON’T CUT IT
There used to be an expectation on a quite formal dress for management and women were expected to wear a suit or dress. I still don’t understand how wearing a dress made me more able to manage my staff or indeed do my job. Now, working for myself, you’d be lucky at the moment if you can get me to wear anything other than shorts and t-shirts. Most of the time I have a work uniform of jeans and a hoodie.
WHY REWARD EMPLOYEES?
Many jobs aren’t as secure these days as they were 20 or 30 years ago. It’s nearly a daily occurrence now that we hear of a huge business going into administration or closing the doors completely. Once over those businesses would have employed staff on the basis that they are a large, secure business that has been around for years. Remember Woolworths?
When it comes to recruiting, many employees don’t see salary as their number one deciding factor. Employee benefits and potential rewards can be seen as a more attractive option than just getting paid every month.
Employee reward is a two-way street. If you want your staff to be loyal and work their hardest every day, it’s not enough to tell them they have job security for working hard, or that a trained chimp could do their job. Employee reward needs to be tangible.
THE BENEFITS OF STAFF LOYALTY
New staff would come into a department with very low morale. An underlying bad attitude and then faced with learning a difficult job being taught by other staff that simply did not want to be there.
The very simple act of rewarding those staff for both their hard work and long service would have gone a long way in resolving the departments’ issues. Loyal and long-serving staff are worth far more to any business than the salary number alone. The costs of recruiting and training new staff is often an unseen figure as it’s hard to quantify. The costs of bad recruiting or poor staff retention go way beyond the cost of placing a recruitment advert.
HOW TO REWARD STAFF
Things such as flexible working aren’t so much a reward anymore though. Flexibility is becoming more normal in the business working hours and actually helps recruit and retain staff. It also helps to meet business needs for when 9-5 Monday to Friday just doesn’t cut it.
There are some great programmes available to help businesses run effective reward and recognition schemes. Operating an official program also helps staff to focus on the rewards they want and are able to track and measure their own progress. It also ensures that the employer is operating such programmes in a fair way. Companies such as Corporate Rewards can help businesses create recognition, incentive and event programmes. They can even help with customer rewards.
IT’S NOT JUST THE BIG COMPANIES
We all like to be thanked for what we do, and we all like rewards.