9 Top Ways to Motivate Your Company Employees
Despite the common misconception, free snacks and a ping pong table aren’t all you need to keep your dream team motivated. Company branded swag can help with employee recognition, but you’ll need more to help keep employee satisfaction and morale high.
Employees want to feel valued, recognized for their hard work, and see an opportunity for growth within the organization. So in addition to providing a pleasant place to work, it’s essential to have incentives that will motivate your employees, keeping them productive and focused. The happier they are working for your company, the better their work will be – the ultimate win, win.
A great company culture combined with a manager who knows how to motive employees is the secret to success. There are a range of different things you can do to help motive your employees. Some of these should be done on a daily basis, but other can be more infrequent. Open communication and rewarding hard work can have a significant impact on the performance of your business and are important factors for success.
Take your teams to the next level with these effective ways for employee motivation:
PTO: One of the classic motivators includes PTO. Offering a generous paid time off policy that increases with tenure is a big benefit to consider for both prospective and long-term employees. Unlimited vacation days has also become a very popular trend. Companies like Netflix have famously been offering the option since 2004. You can also provide a team member some travel swag before a big trip.
401(k): Another classic motivator includes 401(k) with matching from the employer. This benefit lets employees know you’re thinking of them in the long term.
WFH: In these digital days, the work from home flexibility is becoming more and more prevalent. Whether it’s offering the option one day a week, or the entire break between Christmas and New Year’s Day, this option shows that you trust your employees to manage their time and responsibilities without supervision. Also providing them with branded office swag can help them be more prepared whether they are working in home or from the road.
Commuter Benefits: Most jobs are still happening IRL so a huge perk would be subsidizing the cost of getting there. Commuter benefits help employees to reduce their monthly commuting expenses for public transit, bicycling, or parking costs. On average commutes are getting longer, so apart from the financial benefits, you can provide them with some customized products to help make the daily grind more enjoyable. Power banks to keep their devices charged or wireless bluetooth earbuds are popular choices.
Work Late Accommodations: Tight deadline happens! So while your employees are showing value to their work, show them that you’re valuing their commitment. One motivator can be a Seamless dinner credit for working passed their regular hours. Another late night motivator is an Uber or Lyft ride home, on the company account. This is a great benefit for those who have a busy work environment where deadlines have to be met and shows you really appreciate the extra effort they are putting in and their time away from home.
Continued Education: William S. Burroughs famously said, “When you stop growing you start dying.” Offering employees a monthly learning stipend gives them an opportunity to develop new skills directly relevant to the role and their career growth. New skills are a great way to get the best work out of your team. This can help with employee morale, especially if they are doing jobs that are repetitive and a little boring. It can give an employee something more taxing to do and help with job satisfaction. A customized notebook or some branded pens are great gifts to help them keeps notes during a new course or conference.
Monthly Team Events: Organizing monthly team events is a great way for team bonding and to make sure that employees get a well-deserved rest. To make sure that the planning role doesn’t always fall on the shoulders of the same person each month, alternate who is responsible for organizing the plans. Many employees enjoy team events and give positive feedback on their experience. A good option to help with improving the overall workplace culture and a simple way to reward great work. Even a regular happy hour with some games can help build team morale. Stock your office with some branded drinkware for the team to use during these events.
Referral Money: Cash incentives and gift cards can be a huge perk when drawing the best new talent to your teams. That is why companies like Success Academy and CB Insights offer several thousand dollars in referral money to employees who assist in bringing in a new hire and top talent.
Partnerships with other brands: Special incentives and product-launch events as rewards for high performance or meeting quotas are excellent motivators for employees. Bose specifically works off a points-based system where employees can go to an online swag store and earn small things (ex. water bottles and pens) to big things like vacations. This is a great method for motivating employees.
Your employees spend a lot of time at work, even when they have a good work-life balance. So, help make it a place where they want to be!
Are there any successful motivators you’ve tried that we missed? Let us know your tips for employee engagement and how to make your team excel.
