Your employee’s happiness and motivation should always be a top priority for you, no matter what job you do. Your employees are the ones that make your company work and if they are not motivated or incentivised you might see a dip in work quality.
By introducing an employee reward scheme, you can reward your employees for their hard work and encourage them to work harder and do better, but do employee reward schemes really work?
What Is an Employee Reward Scheme?
An employee reward scheme is a scheme put in place by a business to help reward its employees for good work.
Many companies choose to reward their employees for their hard work at some point, it can be something as simple as a Christmas party or workday outing, but with an employee reward scheme, you can reward your employees throughout the year at regular intervals.
You might even want to reward your employees for improving their wellbeing. After all, studies show improved mental, physical, and financial wellbeing leads to more productive employees, lower turnover, and easier hiring. Our Wellbeing app and portal help your staff monitor, track and improve their wellbeing. You can see the engagement and efforts your team are putting in and reward accordingly.
There are lots of pros and cons to introducing an employee reward scheme and what works for one business might not work for another so make sure you take care to fully understand the pros and cons and take into account how this could affect your employees.
The Pros and Cons of Employee Reward Schemes
Different employee rewards schemes will work differently for each workplace so you need to understand your employees and how introducing an employee reward scheme will either positively or negatively affect your workers.
Pros of Employee Reward Schemes
An employee reward scheme should benefit both the employer and the employee, here is how it can do this.
- An employee can earn rewards as a thank you for all their hard work. These rewards can be something of monetary value like gift vouchers. This can help them relax and enjoy themselves outside of work and that in turn can make them more productive when it comes to working.
- You can set up a scheme that rewards those who do the most work. This not only rewards the hardest working, most well-deserving workers, but also urges employees who might not be as productive to work harder without the need to call them out.
- Employee reward schemes can help add a bit of healthy, friendly competition into the workplace which can help increase work productivity.
- You can use employee reward schemes to reward employees for not just their achievements, but for their service and attendance as well. This means you can reward people who have worked for the company for a long time, reached certain milestones or never taken a sick day.
Cons of Employee Reward Schemes
There are unfortunately some cons to introducing employee rewards scheme. What can motivate one employee can be detrimental to another, so you need to make sure you have thought about all the potential cons before you implement one.
- A reward shouldn’t be the only reason your employees are incentivised to do well and if they are only working hard for the reward then it might come across in their work.
- A little bit of friendly competition can be good for morale but can also be harmful. This can create added work stress and pressure, especially for someone who frequently struggles or can’t work as fast as others.
- Employee reward schemes can end up being expensive and costly to the company. If you are going to reward your employees, you need to make sure that the gifts you are giving out are proportional to the amount of work being done that the company can afford to give these gifts. You should also be wary of how extravagant the gifts are, if you start giving more and more lavish gifts then people will start to expect this and won’t be happy if there is a dip in quality.
- Sometimes rewarding employees via employee reward schemes can come across as a little patronising, as though you need to reward a child for good behaviour. At the same time, they can be seen as impersonal and your workforce might benefit more from personalised gifts and group outings where everyone is rewarded and you can get to your employees a little better.
Contact Us
Why not contact us today to see how you can help your staff improve their wellbeing or reward your employees for improving their wellbeing. Or email info@yourwellspace.com. We will be happy to help you!
Alternatively, for tips, advice or other employee-related information, visit our news page.
