Maintaining workplace productivity without becoming a nightmare boss is a tough line for many managers and business owners to tread – and the key is to ensure you are providing incentives for good work rather than demonizing less productive members of the team.
By dangling rewards in front of your team members, you can help to increase productivity at the business for very little outlay. People love a competition, and even a relatively small prize could really get people’s heads down and working hard.
What can you reward?
In some workplaces, productivity is easier to quantify than in others. An increase in sales by a particular employee is easy to spot and reward, but sometimes productivity is harder to measure – in a payroll office or HR department for instance.
In these cases, it may be better to reward effort rather than output – something you might find is easier to spot.
What should your incentives be?
An employee of the month award which comes with a voucher or a bottle of wine could be a good way to keep people’s eye on the prize. If you’re in a business like sales where it’s possible to have a leader board, the person with the best sales for the month could receive an extra half day of leave or the equivalent of a bonus.
It doesn’t always have to be a quid-pro-quo though. Employees who are treated better are often more productive as a result. For instance, you could offer each staff member a stationery budget of £10 a month over and above the usual costs, which they can spend on ‘fun’ stationery like quirky post-it notes and desk organizers.
Even small gestures like giving the people who work for you Easter eggs, offering extra time off around public holidays or buying heart shaped post-it notes for the office around Valentine’s Day can help to ensure that they feel appreciated and work hard for you.
If you’re thinking of some stationery-based incentives, take a look at the wide range of fun stationery available on the Office Monster website.
