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Employee Incentive Plans and Ideas

Prashant Magar
The success of an organization depends, to a large extent, on the quality of its workforce and more importantly, on how motivated the workforce is. Employee incentive plans and ideas play a crucial role in determining the productivity of the human resource in any organization.

5 Key Points for Incentive Plans

1] Keep incentive plans parallel with business goal.
2] Constant check of focus on organization's priorities.
3] Effective communication.
4] Fair incentive patterns to all levels in a department.
5] Motivating rewards for employees is a must.
The 20th century employee was largely satisfied with certain typical perks like health-benefits, which they would get for exceptional performance. But, considering the higher demands of the modern world in every field, it has become absolutely critical for firms to deliver the best when it comes to employee management.
This entails developing a workforce of the highest quality, which led to a huge rise in the employee incentive plans across the globe. Retaining and continuously looking forward to hiring new talent became as crucial as the delivery of quality goods or services.
Some of the most common incentives for employee motivation are listed below. Most of these are an assured way of providing job satisfaction and ensuring better results for your entity.

Employee Incentive Ideas

Make Them Feel Special: One of the most genuine concern of any individual is the need of belonging and appreciation. Individuals feel more at ease, secured, and have a deep sense of gratification, when they feel wanted and important.
While it may not be possible for the company to involve every employee in decision-making, they can use some charity or social platform for the same. For example, a firm can assign an employee the privilege of being in charge of its social commitments.
It may include supervising a weekend teaching session for a poor neighborhood, building a community sports-center funded by company and looked after by its employee/s, or arranging for the annual function of the company and so on.
Sometimes, the feeling of being trusted and worthy is a much bigger incentive than monetary benefits. If an organization values the words and ascertains the importance of employees, it can be a big morale booster for them, leading to dedicated culture and high productivity.
Provide Quality Work Environment: Another big incentive is a workable and an inviting work environment. People would readily work for a company, even if it offers slightly less pay, but provides excellent working conditions.
This include things, like quality sanitation, fresh and charming work environment, babysitting facility for working mothers, providing for recreation facilities for employees to relax and get refreshed, tying up with local dance schools, shopping centers or gyms for employee discount memberships.
If you can provide for a balanced and a pleasant state of mind for the workforce, it is bound to positively affect the company's performance. Firms like Toyota and Google are famous throughout the world for their excellent work culture care leading to better employee performance, and eventually better output as well.
Allow Flexible Work Hours and Food: Often, time-flexibility is the most desired aspect of a job. If there is flexibility with regards to time people spend at their workplace -- specially for mothers with kids to look after and single parents -- and a liberal structure for vacation and off days, employee spirits are usually very high.
They say, 'The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.' In fact, many people, men and women, have food preferences as one of the major concerns for choosing a workplace.
The fact that a firm takes care of the diet requirements of an individual, with regards to the food quality, and variety and hygiene, shows its genuine interest in looking after the well-being of the employee.
Money Matters: The most genuine concern, whether accepted by the employee or not, is the monetary compensation and performance appraisals.
It simply works out that if a firm guarantees more pay, it may be successful in ensuring a quality workforce and greater productivity for the same. Therefore, if it is possible to provide good pay, timely monetary rewards, and appreciation in terms of money, it works best for any organization.
Employee incentive plans and ideas work best when there is an element of sincerity in providing them. There should be the glint of genuine happiness in taking note of their efforts, and ultimately the organization can reap the benefits of high and willingly made contribution from the employees.