The Benefits of Rewarding Your Employees
Positively recognising and rewarding employees for desired performance has many benefits in the workplace, and should be considered an essential part of day to day operations.
Even with economic uncertainty, the temptation to cut employee benefits should be resisted for a number of reasons. In the case of apprentices and trainees, employers are generally dealing with a generation that thrives on positive reinforcement. In a recent study, it was found that millennials highly value regular feedback and encouragement, and expect mentorship and training as part of their professional development.
Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, recently revealed his customers were not his first priority, and nor were his investors. “Put your staff first, customers second, and shareholders third,” says Sir Branson. Sir Branson believes that by not treating employees well and ensuring they feel appreciated and taken care of, companies risk losing customers over bad service. Rewarding high performing employees will ensure you’re keeping the attention of your top talent, and will inspire employee engagement and enthusiasm. As employee enthusiasm improves, so will customer satisfaction and loyalty as the quality of outputted work improves.
Through properly rewarding desired performance, businesses can not only improve retention rates of millennials (and indeed all employees) but they can improve overall productivity in the workplace as well. As employees begin to recognise extra benefits associated with achieving and exceeding KPI’s, employees will work to repeat the desired behaviour.
In addition, employers can enjoy lower absenteeism and stress, and may see an improvement in safety records and lost time injury. So what will all these benefits of rewarding employees cost you? Simply, the time taken to give the recognition, and the dollar cost of any physical rewards. A small price to pay!
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