Every year both the public and private sector spend time and money organising off-site team building days to get people pumped up, but that approach needs to be rethought.
Human resources management service provider – EI’s chief executive officer – Ben Thompson encouraged managers to rethink this approach and focus on consistent across the board recognition programs that drive the organisation’s objectives throughout the year – not just on one day.
“Annual group off-site sessions are not always something everyone enjoys or gets to attend. Employees can come to resent them because they keep attendees from doing real, useful work and make the people who are not invited feel disengaged,” he said.
“To retain high performing staff and motivate people at all levels to improve consistently, the best way is to implement an ongoing recognition program for both individuals and teams.
“These programs should define, track and recognise the behaviours and objectives that make a real difference day to day.”
EI has developed the following four tips for consistent engagement, reward and recognition.
1. Use gaming techniques in your HR strategy. An overwhelming majority of people would much rather engage in something fun and rewarding, and would likely take preventative measures to avoid overly boring or complex tasks. Gamification strategies can energise employees and foster an atmosphere of progress. It also allows employees to reach goals and be rewarded based on progress by way of things like – level ascension, gathering virtual goods, avatar programs, leaderboards and points gathering.
2. Adopt a recognition and reward system. Employees are able to gain points for the work they do so they obtain material things that they personally enjoy. You can access off-the-shelf points-based programs today that are easy to integrate with your business goals, simple to customise with your brand and easy to manage. This could also be linked to your gamification strategy.
3. Build a culture of employee appreciation. Cash incentives and public recognition, while nice, don’t always make your employees feel totally appreciated. Take some of your short-term morale boosters, like recognising good work with handshake and a smile, or idea sharing, and turn it into a business lifestyle. Thanking employees face-to-face on a regular basis also helps improve their ability to accept constructive criticism.
4. Step it up a notch – with a challenge. Sometimes the most sincere form of flattery is being trusted with more challenging work. It’s a fact that underpinning of recognition is a respectful relationship. If the manager shows trust with new challenges – that may be all the recognition that is needed.
When an ongoing and consistent rewards program is implemented that clearly acknowledges and values the contributions of a team member or members, this becomes more effective as more employees are likely to strive for this recognition of their hard work.
“It is better to consistently reward top performing staff in order to ensure high retention levels. Consistent rewarding also helps to inspire those that may not be achieving as much and who may try harder in order to receive the same recognition and rewards,” Mr Thompson said.
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