Author: Julia Voloshchenko, PR professional and Editor-in-Chief of the Usetech blog. Expert in media relations and branding. I write about technology and business.
It’s no secret that employee motivation and engagement play a big role in business, whether small or large companies. Most HR executives and CEOs note that employee dissatisfaction can be attributed to a suboptimal and inflexible approach to motivation and engagement. To work around this, you need to keep up with HR technology developments and incorporate new approaches into your business.
In this article, we will look at several methods that affect employee engagement and motivation, and guest speakers will share their experiences.
Bonus system
The use of the bonus system is not new: it is actively used in marketing in the development of customer loyalty programs. But it turns out that the bonus system can be actively implemented and expanded for your own employees. Here’s what Jeff Mains, a 5x Entrepreneur, and CEO of Champion Leadership Group LLC. says:
“At Champion Leadership Group, we believe that employee motivation is a crucial factor in achieving success. We understand that happy and motivated employees are more productive and committed to achieving our company’s goals. One way we motivate our employees is through the use of bonuses.
Firstly, we offer performance-based bonuses to our employees who achieve their targets and exceed their expectations. These bonuses serve as an acknowledgment of their hard work and dedication to their roles.
Secondly, we provide referral bonuses to our employees who refer new talents to the company. This encourages our employees to actively participate in the recruitment process and helps us attract top talents.
Lastly, we offer profit-sharing bonuses to our employees. This bonus is distributed based on our company’s profitability, and it motivates our employees to work together towards achieving our financial goals.
We ensure that our bonus system is fair and transparent, and we communicate the criteria for each bonus to our employees clearly. Additionally, we regularly review our bonus system to ensure that it aligns with our company’s goals and values.
Overall, our bonus system plays a crucial role in motivating our employees to give their best and contribute to our company’s success.”
You can develop a bonus system based on your employees: what would they like to get? What bonuses are they interested in? Start from the needs and interests of your employees so that the bonus program fully realizes itself and is really useful.
“In terms of bonuses, employers can use different kinds of incentives to engage employees, but profit-sharing worked well for my team. Sharing a portion of the company’s profits with employees has motivated them to work harder and feel more invested in the company’s success.” — adds Kelly Chan, a financial services marketing manager with prior HR experience.
Taking care of mental health
Unfortunately, most workers around the world are increasingly experiencing burnout: both emotional burnout and burnout from work tasks. Often it is impossible to notice the moment when a person is burned out, and this is fraught with negative consequences both for him and for his colleagues.
For most companies, the main value is their people, so it is worth to take care of their mental health and not to forget to offer rest or consult a psychologist. In addition, it is worth talking to your employees and clarifying what they are worried about, whether they have a lot of work to do, whether they have time to rest. Believe me, these questions will please every employee. It will show that the employer cares about them and truly appreciates them.
For example, you can arrange meetings with a psychologist or even hire a corporate psychologist for the company. Or you can give employees a subscription to a psychological service.
Arrange team calls more often and talk about things other than work: share your impressions from the last movie you saw, discuss your hobbies, have a picnic online or offline, play a game of quiz. All of these activities help distract you and create a productive work-life balance.
“The real magic happens when we focus on mental wellness, ownership, and autonomy. That means encouraging self-care, giving people the freedom to make decisions, and paying them well. The more we support our team’s well-being and offer meaningful incentives, the better they perform. It’s almost like they’re happier and more committed to the company – imagine that! Employee attrition? It’s taken a nosedive. When people feel valued and understood, they stick around.” — notes Tara Furiani, the CEO of Tarabull Media and Host of Not the HR Lady.
If you understand that your employee is facing burnout, then we offer you the following algorithm of actions:
- Talk to the employee in person, not in the presence of the team. Find out what burnout is related to: work tasks, for personal reasons, or something else?
- Offer the employee a day off or vacation, a psychologist’s consultation, a trip to a professional conference or a new education — anything that will help him relax or reboot.
- If burnout is associated with work activity, try to choose the best work option. You can offer an employee to change the scope of employment within the company, retrain or upgrade their qualifications, delegate tasks and unload the employee.
Loyalty programs
One of the new areas of work with employees is a loyalty and motivation program. You can use it to work on employee engagement and develop brand ambassadors.
“We had experience with a gamification-based intangible motivation platform for employees. Employees received internal currency for some actions and could spend it in the internal store on equipment or things with the company logo.
This increased employee engagement to 87% and reduced employee turnover. Moreover, thanks to this platform, several brand ambassadors appeared in the company.” — notes Maria Nikolaeva, Chief Marketing Officer at Usetech.
Flexible working hours
All employees value their time spent on work tasks, so flexible work hours and convenient schedules are among the things that can motivate them. For example, set a flexible start to the workday (from 8 to 11 a.m.) and set general calls at times that are convenient for everyone.
“One of these strategies is to encourage autonomy and flexibility, which worked well for my team and me. Offering employees autonomy and flexibility in their work can increase their engagement and motivation. Flexible work hours, remote options, and opportunities for self-directed projects can help with this.” — notes Kelly Chan.
Don’t control every step of your employees
Constant monitoring and recording of every minute of work time can be great to demotivate the employee, who will think that you do not trust him. Be flexible, give your employees the ability to make their own decisions, and you will see their motivation grow.
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