At the heart of every successful business are a legion of hardworking employees, but when was the last time that you openly recognized and rewarded your team for their efforts? To be a successful business owner, you need to understand how important it is to praise and reward your employees. Let’s look at the benefits of expressing praise to your team:
Increased Employee Satisfaction
Appreciation is a human need, and employees respond to it as it confirms their sense of value in the workplace. When employees feel valued, not only does their efficiency and productivity increase, but they are more motivated to continue to improve their work.
Employee satisfaction is crucial for increasing your business’s staff retention rates. The longer that your employees remain in your service, the more skilled and knowledgeable they become about your business. The effect of cultivating a loyal and skilled team is that your customers receive an improved service and are more likely to give positive reviews and feedback and refer you to their friends and family; your profits will soar, and you will save money from reduced absenteeism and by avoiding spending resources on recruitment.
Enhanced Business Culture
A Gallup poll in 2018 identified that only 1 in 3 employees of American businesses stated that they had received recognition and praise for doing a good job in the preceding week at work. While this may be because they didn’t deserve it, the reality is that it is more likely that it is just not within the business culture to express regular appreciation.
Some may argue that praising employees for doing the role that they are paid to do is unnecessary; however, by actively praising and rewarding employees, you are able to develop a business culture that encourages your team to initiate praise in their business relationships with colleagues. A positive business culture inspires collaboration and a sense of unity to achieve business goals.
There are many ways to reward employees for their hard work. Whether you choose to buy whiskey online, gift them tickets to a sporting event, or present an employee of the month certificate, make the giving of the reward a public event of celebration.
Areas to reward:
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Performance
The most obvious activity to reward for is performance. It’s relatively easy to measure performance based on the achievement of set goals in a sales environment, but for employees who do not fall into this category of team, you need to spend time identifying ways that you can measure their success. Perhaps your postal room employees have reduced the time that it takes for mail to be distributed, or the housekeepers have increased the amount of garbage that is set for recycling; be creative and fair by setting realistic goals.
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Behavior
Sometimes employees go above and beyond their set tasks and exceed expectations. This is a little harder to quantify, but it is a great way to motivate others to follow suit. Working extra hours to complete a project, mentoring a new member of staff or raising donations for a charity should all be recognized and rewarded.
The concept of rewarding employees for achieving goals or going above and beyond their duties is simple, but the benefits to the business are complex and long-lasting and can positively influence the bottom line, bringing value to both your organization and to the employee.
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