Many of us have probably left jobs where the only thing we ever heard was “work harder and faster!” Or in the Navy: no liberty until morale improves.
If you are serious about going from success to significance, or from good, to great, to unstoppable, recognition and rewards must be part of your job as a leader or manager. As leaders we need to motivate and inspire our team. Rewards and recognition have been proven to be a great way to keep your team inspired and engaged.
Does motivation last?
Of course, there are the naysayers who say, “Motivation doesn’t last.” But to quote the late Zig Ziglar, “Neither does bathing, that’s why we need it every day.”
For those of you who know me, you might know I invest a considerable amount of time reading about ways to improve myself and my team. I then put what I have read into action. In my last few columns I wrote about Employee Engagement and Key Performance Indicators as ways to improve our businesses.
In mid-September, Amazon’s latest delivery was 1501 Ways to Reward Your Employees. With over 1.7M copies in print this book is jam packed with low-cost and no-cost ideas and best practices for rewarding your staffers with the latest strategies and trends with particular emphasis on millennials.
Here’s one of the 1501 ideas: When Greg Peel, a zone manager for Paychex in Dallas sees an employee working really hard he calls that person’s mother and thanks her.
Here’s one way I reward at my firm. When a line staff member goes ‘above and beyond’ at an event, his supervisor nominates him or her for an end-of-the month reward. This goes on throughout the month. At our first weekly management team meeting the following month we select the top three team members who we feel were the best and they receive first, second, and third place prizes valued at $150 total. Rather than guess what they want, we ask them.
But what about those who were not nominated? Good question. Every time a person is nominated during our season (which goes from October through June), he or she is entered into a one-time-yearly drawing in which three prizes totaling $1,750 are awarded. The more times a staffer is nominated, the more chances to win.
To conclude, you don’t need to invest much treasure in recognition; only your time and talent.
Get Fresh, October 2016
