To create a conducive working environment, employees need to feel appreciated and valued by their employers. While most bosses think that the monthly salaries or wages issued seem reasonable enough, taking time to offer non-monetary incentives to staffs who have made tremendous efforts toward the achievement of business goals makes them develop a sense of belonging and validation.
In the perfect setting, a boss would issue out stupendous raises and hold a lavish company party on a monthly basis. Most firms cannot do that in reality. Showing appreciation doesn’t have to mean large spends. Simple gestures to extend your gratitude will not only give personnel an incentive to keep working hard, but they tend to enjoy their work more.
If finding ways to reward employees is challenging, here are some creative ideas of how to motivate employees without monetary rewards.
1. Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose
According to Daniel Pink who wrote Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us discovered that people’s motivation is boosted by the following:
- Autonomy – People feel better when they take control over their work. Rather than being the all-bossy employer, give employees a chance to partake in decision making.
- Mastery – Most people want to have mastery over their work and will appreciate it if you offer them a way to show their work progress. Create constructive feedback, career development programs, and performance metrics.
- Purpose – Most employees want to be part and parcel of something that transcends them. By expressing how their efforts have driven the company aligns a sense of value in a company.
2. A Paid Day Off
A week’s work is enough to get your employees fatigued and worn-out. If that’s the case, you can surprise on a Friday morning with an email letting them know that they can take an afternoon off. Of course, anyone would appreciate a long weekend. If you’re feeling generous enough, let them take an entire day off as a token of staff recognition.
3. Tickets to Sporting and Entertainment Events
Most people would love to attend certain events of interests, yet they lack the financial strength to buy the required tickets.
Most ticket-brokering companies have a platform where they create alerts on the upcoming events based on guest artists, sports personalities, location, and date. Integrate a software within your business that notifies you of events within your locality to receive alerts. Identify the highest performing employees and give them a pair of paid tickets. The trick is to pop up with this idea out of the blues.
4. Allow them to Adorn Casually
In the corporate business world, people wear formal clothes most of the time. If you feel your employees are tired of the monotony, break it by letting them wear casually to work. Employees feel confident and motivated when they are free to wear what makes them comfortable. Consequently, they are motivated to perform their work to perfection.
5. Create a Community
By creating a sense of unity within a company, staffs not only feel connected to the brand but also to one another.
Online forums are a great way of creating warm relationships, but none can beat the bonds formed through personal interactions. Therefore, encourage your team to go for a lunch break together, hold a party in celebration of a goal reached, or a conference. Coming together also creates room for after-hour bonding, and employers are encouraged to invite employees’ families to the company’s events.
6. Perks and Privileges
So, how do you motivate employees by providing perks and privileges? Well, when staffs are feeling healthy, they tend to be harder, smarter and more creative because they’ll have a sense of contentment and achievement on their working days. If the regular schedule can hardly fit for everyone, try offering a work-from-home day off as a privilege for an employee’s hard work.
Other privileges include offering an employee preferred parking spot, an extended lunch break, or taking up tasks that interest them. When your team of workers enjoys the job, their productivity level spikes.
7. Give Unusual Rewards
If you want to take your appreciation to the next level, you can create a prize draw raffle to elevate your staff’s motivation level. Pick out the highest performing employees and enter their names in the draw raffle with a chance of winning a prize. You can choose an independent prize draw from those who support community and charity and your expenditure on the award depends on your budget. You can even have a raffle with chances of getting a prestige car. Also, you can reward individual teams by issuing travel vouchers to specific destinations.
8. Explore the Outdoors
Another gesture to show staff recognition is by rewarding a team with the chance to get out of the office and participate in an outdoor activity. For example, they can attend archery classes, go rafting, visit the museum among others. Breaking the indoor vibe boosts the company’s morale.
Appreciating your employees goes a long way in moving the company forward. When the thoughtful but straightforward gestures boost employees’ morale, they are propelled to extend their best efforts to push the company forward. You need not use the money to show thanks. All you need is the creativity to understand what interests and motivates people.