As a business owner, no doubt you’ve wondered on numerous occasions what you can do to improve your bottom line. One sure way to do this is to improve productivity. More productive employees mean bigger profits for your business. Plus, employees who are continually challenged tend to get bored less and quit their jobs less often than those who aren’t. Maintaining a strong employee incentive program is an excellent long-term solution for increasing productivity, improving morale, and reducing employee turnover.
What is an Employee Incentive Program?
An employee incentive program is simply a program used to reward employees for performing their jobs well. An incentive program can take many different forms, from cash bonuses to extra vacation days or even winning a vacation package. Whatever the type of motivation you settle on, the evidence is strong that a good incentive program will save your business money in the long run. So how do you know if it’s right for your business? These are a few of the signs that might help you decide to finally take advantage of this type of program for your business.
Productivity is Stagnant
Without an incentive to do their jobs well, employees will eventually sink to the level of productivity that is “just good enough” to keep them from being replaced. After all, if they have no motivation to go the extra mile, it is simply human nature to do the bare minimum that is required.
An employee incentive program provides employees with the motivation to work harder and produce more. Rather than being driven by fear of being replaced—which will lead to results that are only good enough to prevent that occurrence—a strong incentive program will motivate employees to do their best at every task, every day on the job.
Morale is Low
It’s pretty straightforward: an employee incentive program will increase the morale of employees. Employees are people, and people like to feel that their hard work is appreciated. If an employee works hard and is never recognized for doing so, he or she may eventually begin to reduce his or her level of effort. After all, if it doesn’t matter either way, why bother to put in the extra work? A strong employee incentive program will show employees that your management cares, and this in turn will boost morale, leading to happier and more productive employees.
Turnover is High
Employees who are unhappy at their jobs tend to look around and move on to other positions more frequently. Sound familiar? This costs you money because you have to find new employees to replace the ones you lost, and you have to spend the time and money training them. Furthermore, the employees who leave will take with them valuable institutional knowledge. This means that your remaining employees will take longer to complete a given task than if the knowledgeable employees had not left the business.
Starting Your Own Employee Incentive Program
A good employee incentive program accomplishes a number of things: it increases your bottom line by increasing productivity which thereby reduces turnover by letting employees feel that their hard work is appreciated and that you care about your workforce.
We’ve helped countless businesses boost morale and productivity with a well-executed employee incentive program. We believe in the efficacy of motivational programs so much that it’s the origin of our name: MTI Events! Partner with us and together we’ll design an employee incentive program that will deliver the results you desire.