Building A Successful Employee Rewards Program
Abe Dearmer
Oct 18, 2021
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7 min read
Sales
In this article, you'll learn about best practices for creating and maintaining a successful employee rewards program that can boost engagement, loyalty, and overall performance in your company. Discover how to set clear targets, gather feedback, allocate budgets, and track analytics to ensure a sustainable and effective program.
Key Takeaways:
- Set clear targets and expectations for the rewards program
- Gather and incorporate feedback from employees to improve the program
- Allocate budgets to make the rewards program sustainable and exciting
- Keep track of ROIs and analytics to measure the success of the program
- Use data collected from the rewards program to make informed business decisions and reinforce desired employee behaviors
The most successful way to ensure that your workforce is engaged and committed to their work is by using customized rewards and recognizing your employees for their contributions. If employees are happy about what they do, your business can significantly reduce workforce dissatisfaction and turnover as well.
An engaged workforce is also more likely to put more energy into their work, all of which is easily possible by crafting a successful employee rewards program. If you want to build a concrete employee rewards program that suits your company, here are the top best practices to motivate them.
Set clear targets and expectations from the onset
Not setting clear objectives from the beginning is one of the biggest reasons for the failure of most reward programs. Make sure there isn't a lack of setting expectations and targets before you implement the program so that tracking progress and course-correcting is possible when required.
Clearly outline the kind of behaviors you want to see in your employees by ensuring you first completely understand your expectations. The better you can elucidate on these behavioral requirements, the better your employees will be able to attain those targets. This can be done by providing your employees with informative collateral such as videos and guides to help them understand as well as take advantage of your company's rewards program.
You can base your rewards program on either management-recommended metrics like attrition and churn rate, or base it on employee-oriented factors likes Net Promoter Scores. This decision lies in what suits your business best and can help make your initiatives more successful.
Gather and incorporate feedback
Without feedback, you will never fully know what your employees are expecting from you. Listen to what they have to say after you initially announce your rewards program. Make amends based on this feedback in various aspects of your program to ensure effective implementation. Making these changes sooner than later can also contribute to the early success and effectiveness of your rewards program.
Apart from the initial recording and incorporation of the feedback, make sure to also carry out this process at regular intervals so that the program works smoothly and seamlessly over time as well. Keep your employees engaged by using creative reward ideas that are interesting to your workforce, as well as define the KPIs for them.
Allocate budgets for rewards
A very common reason for many reward programs to not work out is the lack of budget allocation and understanding. If granting of budgets is done on an ad-hoc basis, companies will fail to achieve their targets. Using expensive gifts and trips as a way to lure employee participation and engagement can only work in the short run. It is not at all a feasible or sustainable option for an ongoing rewards program and can eventually cut into other company budgets if not maintained.
To ensure that the program is running smoothly, a quarterly or yearly budget needs to be allocated. This can then be divided to create rewards that are not just exciting for the workforce but also sustainable for the company.
Keep track of ROIs and analytics
If you want to know the status of your efforts and initiatives, it is imperative that you keep track of the necessary ROIs and analytics. After you have successfully implemented the employee rewards program and it is running smoothly, measure its success by analyzing metrics that have improved.
Many businesses believe that using such an incentive program can burn a hole in their pocket but on the contrary, if the program is implemented and executed perfectly, it can actually offer excellent returns. A study by Forbes shows that a successful employee rewards program can reduce turnover by over 31% - this statistic should be enough to elucidate the need for an effective rewards program for any company.
Analyse and measure the success of your employee rewards program by noticing how certain metrics have bettered after its implementation. You should track metrics such as NPS or Net Promoter Scores that provide insight into workforce morale and lets you track it.
Any kind of data collected via the rewards program can be used to make important business decisions as a whole. It can also be used to reiterate the required employee behavior and achievements across all departments. By understanding whether their behavior is generic or isolated, the company management can instantly take the required corrective measures and implement learnings to make it right.
Implementing these best practices for starting and maintaining a successful and effective employee rewards program can help your business ensure the right level of engagement and loyalty. Recognize your workforce's efforts and gift them accordingly so they are better motivated to work towards their work goals.
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