Incentivizing Employees to Bring Their A-Game

It may not always seem easy to motivate your employees. Sometimes they just get bored, don’t like their jobs, or don’t feel as if they are anything but a number. However, motivating them to bring their A-game to work is sometimes a matter of taking a few inexpensive steps. Not all steps involve direct costs, but the ones that do tend to raise productivity so that it isn’t really an expense, but an investment. Simple things like shop uniforms and rewarding your employees for doing what they do best can go a long way toward creating a more productive work environment.

Reward the Basics

You expect your employees to do things like come in on time on a regular basis. You have obligations to meet, and you hired these people to help you meet them. The problem is that employees sometimes get lost on a personal level, and you tend to forget that they are people, too, not just a means of production. If money isn’t enough of an incentive, you have to give them a reason to want to be excited about showing up. Offer acknowledgement and rewards for attendance, meeting a quota, following basic safety guidelines, and even doing simple things like wearing their official uniforms correctly.

Random Rewards

The most effective reward system of all is a system that involves random rewards. Perhaps you currently offer a bonus for perfect attendance. Your employees try to meet attendance goals because they know what the reward is, but, once they blow that goal by getting sick one day, they might even blow off the rest of the week because they have already lost the bonus. However, when your employees do things like staying late when they don’t have to, and you offer them a reward in the form of something as simple as a sweatshirt, it tells them that you are paying attention to what they do, rather than just monitoring numbers on a sheet. They will work harder to see what other rewards are available and if you are really paying attention or not.

Create a Group Mindset

Your employees look forward to going home all day. Their goal as soon as they get to work is to get the work done and go home. What if you created an atmosphere that helped employees bond as a group so that they looked forward to coming in as much as they look forward to leaving? Then they would come to work not just for the paycheck, but also because they look forward to being with their group and helping that group succeed. A little healthy and fun competition between groups doesn’t hurt, either.

Essentially, your employees will bring their A-game to work every day if they have a reason to feel motivated. From providing official uniforms that help create a group mindset, to offering random bonus incentives, you have more control over employee performance than you might think.