Employees are undeniably the most important part of your business, from the executive management at the top to essential service staff on the very bottom rung. The tireless efforts of an entire workforce are, together, responsible for any one success – and without that hardworking conglomerate, little would be otherwise possible.
Employee retention, then, is arguably one of the more important factors to consider as a business – with employee rewards a vital route to retention. Happy employees are productive employees, as demonstrated by a recent study from the UK – something with a profound impact on your profitability and longevity. But what might reward your employees look like?
Team-Building Vacation
“Team-building” is not a phrase that fills many employees with hope and confidence, despite the thoughts of multinational CEOs and middle managers alike. But this doesn’t mean that team-building can’t form part of a valuable rewards package – particularly when packaged up as a staff vacation.
The nature of this vacation might depend on the size of your company and the level of reward, but whatever the vacation shapes up to be, any organization and cost should be exempted from employees. If your department has overseen a historic deal brokerage or record figures, they might be deserving of much more than a field day of exercises; this is an opportunity to book that private jet rental and bring out the champagne, as a true representative reward for the creation of new business.
Awards Night
If you simply want to recognize your workforce’s achievements across departments and across the previous year, you might be able to do so with a catch-all event that brings everyone together under one roof – i.e.: by holding an industry or inter-office awards night.
Far from Michael Scott’s semi-disastrous attempts to celebrate the Dunder Mifflin team in The Office, your awards night would instead choose an appropriate venue – and incorporate valuable gifts and rewards that further reward honest work, successful outcomes and remarkable talent. Making this a regular ceremonial event can also give your staff something to look forward to, as well as an incentive to perform at their best year-round.
Equipment Upgrades
Rewards can also take a more productive, even practical turn, with the gifting of upgrades to equipment and tools in the event of high departmental performance. The better a team performs, for example, the easier it is to justify investment in newer computers or task-related equipment to make their work simpler and easier. This might take the form of new computers, software upgrades or even furniture.
It should be noted here that any equipment upgrades should not necessarily be performance-based. In certain scenarios, this can inadvertently create partitions or ‘classes’ between members of the same department and team, where those with better equipment are more effective at their work.
