How to Motivate Your Staff

Many employers are now using incentive and motivation schemes within their businesses. With the advent of the Internet these schemes are now child's play to set up and manage. And with a wide-range of incentive and rewards available, there is certainly a scheme that's ideal for your business.

Rewarding your employees can be an excellent means of developing loyalty, but also as a way of showing your appreciation of their hard work over and above a simple bonus payment.

Motivating your staff

Every business today is operating in a highly competitive environment. Small businesses in particular need to ensure that their employees are always working at their best to maintain their position in the marketplace. One way of achieving this goal is via motivation techniques. These techniques can include:

1. Honour systems
   Many businesses have an employee of the month scheme that can instil in a workforce the drive to win that award for themselves. It's important to take the honour system seriously or its perceived worth will be diminished, destroying the incentive to win it each month.
2. Performance related bonuses
   Now commonplace in most large businesses, the bonus system can be organised on an individual basis, or within a group or department. Linking the extra pay to efficiency is an excellent means of developing teams within your business.
3. Flexible working conditions
   All qualifying employees can request that they have more flexibility in their working hours. But taking the proactive step yourself and offering this to all your employees can be a great motivator. Look carefully at the logistics of this kind of incentive to ensure it doesn't damage the operational efficiency of your business.
4. Additional employee benefits
   Your employees are always open to any enhancements that you can make in their terms and conditions. Offering private medical insurance or other health-related services can be a popular benefit to offer. Look closely at the costs behind these schemes, as they may only be feasible when you have a minimum number of employees.

Incentive programs

Because of easy set-up and management via the Internet, incentive programs have become very popular over the last few years. Beginning as a catalogue-based system that employees could accrue incentive points to buy items from has now evolved into an industry that offers branded and tailored incentive programs that are suitable for any size of enterprise.

The type of incentive program you adopt for your business will largely depend on what you hope to achieve with the scheme, and the resources you have available to support the program. For the small business, voucher schemes are an ideal introduction to the world of incentives.

Developing an effective system that motivates your staff is an excellent means of improving the overall efficiency of your businesses. Remember though, your employees must always be consulted before you introduce any incentive scheme, as you must match the scheme to their expectations. Not all schemes are a good fit for all types of businesses. And try and look past the simple financial reward schemes. Research has indicated that 30 per cent of vouchers are never redeemed. Today, many employees are more interested in other forms of incentive such as experience days or luxury breaks.