Recognizing an employee’s talent and rewarding them is a simple way to increase motivation. American Express recently conducted a survey on 300 SME (small-medium enterprises). They found that 89% of workers have received some form of incentive from their company. While most employees have received some form of incentive, about 33% percent of employee participants feel that it makes them work harder. This is interesting to note considering that 37% of employers who don’t currently use rewards believe that starting a reward system would increase their employees level of production.
While rewarding employees can serve many functions, about 34% of employers feel that adding a incentive program will result in higher retention rates. This seems to makes sense, since 46% of employees feel “really valued” after receiving an incentive. Since 44% percent of employees feel rewards are a way of employers noticing their dedication, it may be worth the investment of companies to think about adding such a system
Companies choose various way in which to reward their team members. 38% of companies choose to only provide an incentive to their high performing employees. While 23% provide rewards to all their employees. It seems that a lot of companies have a harder time investing money into their talent unless it is high profitable for them to do so. But, its interesting to consider that 21% of employers choose to reward their long term employees.
Brendan Walsh, Executive Vice President, recently said “Small to medium-sized businesses have put strategies in place to grow product and service in innovations”. Companies are looking for ways to increase their level of production through various avenues. It’s difficult to judge a reward system in “hard” numbers. Feedback from employees can be a valuable resource to calculate the cost benefit of a reward system.
One often overlooked aspect of incentives is how they are delivered. Looking an employee straight in the eye and saying “thank you” is critical. Simply adding money to a pay check without some form of recognition defeats the purpose.
Of course, incentives are only one part of attracting and keeping employees. We are always searching for new information on employee benefits. If you have any questions about your current employee benefit program, please feel free to contact us. We can answer any questions and help with the expansion of any employee benefit package.
