Creative Employee Incentive Ideas to Boost Engagement
Thinking about organizational progress can start with how employers provide comfort to employees. It sounds difficult if employers have to think about how to retain them while searching for a way to recognize what employees do. You can achieve all of that by creating employee incentive programs to recognize, reward, and retain employees. But what can you offer and what is the function of incentives for employees? We will discuss in this article while providing employee incentive ideas that work for your team or individuals.
What does incentives mean?
Incentives are something that is prepared to encourage or motivate someone to take or avoid a specific action. Incentives refer to external influences such as expectations of a reward so that an individual or team starts taking action. The aim of incentives is to make a team or individual have the desired behaviors and attitudes to achieve a goal. You can think of incentives as motivators because they can come in the form of benefits and rewards. Rewards can be gifts and bonuses, while benefits can fulfill individual needs in various aspects such as physical or mental health, additional time off, promotion, etc.
What are employee incentive programs?
An employee incentive program is a plan to create a list of rewards and benefits for employees. There are two main types of incentive programs, monetary and non-monetary. These programs are designed to attract, engage, retain talent, making employees work productively and efficiently. A monetary incentive is an addition to their base pay, while non-monetary incentive is rewards other than money.
Why incentivise your team members?
Before discussing employee incentive ideas, you need to understand why incentivising team members is crucial. Routine work of any level of difficulty can cause employee burnout, boredom, or lack of motivation. If employees continue to do the same work without any interesting goals or recognition, they will have low morale, disengagement, and high turnover. Same goes to you, if your performance is seen by higher-ups starting from saying thank you for your work, celebrating milestones, or preparing rewards for you, you will feel valued and want to show your best.
Each team member has unique abilities, has their own portion and role for the running of a team. By creating an employee incentive program, you can improve workplace culture, increase job satisfaction, instill a sense of purpose, and increase company loyalty.
Creating incentives must be adjusted to what employee's role is, the level of difficulty of their work, what impact it has on the company's progress, or fulfill what employees need. Below we will discuss some incentive ideas that you can choose for team members.
Creative employee incentive ideas to boost employee's morale
Now we will focus on the acts that you can use to motivate, nurture, and reward your team. Any employee incentive ideas that we have prepared have been selected to be more meaningful and memorable, because a simple thank you note may not be enough for some individuals. Let's take a look for our lists below:
- Company wine bottle set
For employees who achieve big scores and inspire others to maximize their potential, you can give a customized company-wine gift set with creative portrait engraving plus an exclusive custom-made ash decanter, whiskey glass, ice cream, etc. It's a heartfelt gift made with every detail to present an employee with a high-end gift experience.
DesignYourOwnWine is the best place for custom wine bottles and glasses with text customization and portrait engraving, making wine gift sets a keepsake and eternal gift. This gift is suitable occasions for business partners, corporate employee rewards, and customer relationship maintenance. DesignYourOwnWine will help you in showing professionalism and uniqueness in every detail, let the recipient get the best gift from the company.
- Fun team outings
Plan a team building events specifically for your team and let them enjoy fun activities outside the office. There are many activities that can foster teamwork and communication skills such as hiking, beach activities, picnics, amusement parks, etc. Out-of-office experiences will be a relaxation for employees who have gone through a hard week at work and have the opportunity to have fun with their team.
- Commute incentives
There will always be employees who struggle with commuting to work. You can subsidize the commute costs for your employees by offering free bus or train passes for a few months. Or another idea is to offer a drop-and-pick commute service for the recipient. A commute incentive can eliminate stress and be a financial relief for employees, plus boost their morale before or after work.
- Retirement benefits
For loyal employees who have worked for the office for more than 5 years, you can provide incentives to appreciate their work even in old age. You can create financial retirement plans, by setting targets while they are still actively working, and if that employee achieves the target, the retirement account will be filled according to the plan. This will help the company to retain top talent and inspire others to motivate other team members and congratulate each other.
- Work flexibility
Brainstorm with employees to get work flexibility, such as working from home on some days, getting home early, or employees can set what time they come in as long as the working hours are still met per day. If you want to keep the work schedule as usual, you can offer a coffee time or lunch time, and provide restaurants or lounge areas where workers can be productive in those places. Ensure to set guidelines for this method to maintain employee's productivity even though they are not directly working in the office as usual.
Best Employee Perks That Every Individual Will Love
You should always be ready to plan ways to motivate your team. Creating a positive company culture is hard, but it will be much easier if you think about employee incentive programs. The best incentives will provide many things for employees, making them want to stay in the office and contribute as best they can. Whether you want to provide monetary or non-monetary incentives, make sure you have discussed it with employees so that it is in accordance with what they need or want.
