FAQs

There are many forms of rewards that are budget friendly. A simple thank you doesn’t cost anything and if done in the right way can be very rewarding for the employee. You can just call an employee to your office and thank her for a job well done, don’t discuss any other issue. With low budget rewards you can replace material value with evoking emotions by adding a personal note, putting an effort into choosing and presenting the reward, creating a surprise and fun celebration. It really depends on your creativity what you will use for rewarding employees, some great ideas can be found in Bob Nelson’s book 1501 to reward employees.

While money is important for most people, when it comes to rewards it also has some downsides. Most obvious one is that cash rewards are not sustainable, once you spend the money you quickly forget that you’ve got a reward. In addition, monetary rewards are difficult to improve. For example, if you give money, expectations increase and next time around people will just expect to get more. Money is a very common reward, so it lacks personal note. At the end, for many people it is not all about money. They may have other preferences, such as an additional free day, opportunity to attend some training program or better health insurance. Rewards really are rewards only when perceived as such by people receiving them. So matching rewards to individual needs and preferences should be the best way to make rewards effective.

Like any tool, if not used properly, recognition can have negative effects. If criteria are not clear and there is lack of communication, rewards may not be seen as objective and can demotivate. We may reward wrong behaviour, which can happen if we use only single criteria. For example, if we reward just quantity, we can reward somebody who sells the most but also has the most complaints. We can also reward too little/too much, so rewards are not proportionate to achievements. If rewards are not timely, the desired behaviour is not reinforced.

One way to explore the market offer is through salary surveys which are conducted by consulting companies, but those are usually expensive and based on information from large corporations. Alternatives are free salary sites, such as paylab or glassdoor. However, this data shows averages and can serve mostly as orientation as it does not take into account specific needs, preferences and expectations of individual candidates. So it is best to discuss your offer during recruitment and systematically collect and analyse reactions of potential candidates. Open communication and monitoring pay satisfaction is also useful to gather and analyse reactions of those already employed. If you have difficulty to either attract or retain employees, it probably means that it is time to make your package more competitive.

Gamification is an innovative methodology that uses typical game-world elements in business and professional contexts for stimulating the user’s involvement and personal growth, resulting in having leverage on their motivation. Gamification is about using game-based mechanics, aesthetics, and game think to engage people, motivate action, and promote learning. At the end of the day, gamification is really about trying to create a learning experience to help motivate people to change their behaviour.

Gamification of rewards is a popular way to increase employee productivity and engagement by applying game mechanics and game design techniques (e.g. it uses a digital environment to help employees reach certain targets, goals or objectives). Employees earn points as they achieve performance targets, improve their skills or meet any other objectives set by the company.

Read more at Gamify