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When employees are in touch with the results of their work, they perform better.

 Money is a powerful incentive – there’s no doubt about that – but that’s just the reward, and as an employer, you need to do more than just offer financial positive reinforcement.

For the sake of illustrating a point, let’s strip away all the complications. To make our thought experiment scientific, we’ll have a control group, group A, and our test group, group B.

Group A is given a satisfactory paycheck simply for filling 5-gallon bottles of water and placing them on a dock—that’s all they know about their job. Group B is paid the same, however, not only do they understand those water bottles go to help families in need, but they also have a whiteboard tallying up how many families they’ve helped.

Which group do you think will perform better?

The art of crafting an effective performance-based incentive scheme

Understanding the bigger picture both within their company’s goals, and the community they serve can help improve employee performance, behavior, drive, and pride in their work. These tips will help you design a successful performance-based incentive plan.

• Define your objectives. Everyone involved needs to know your overall goals, and how they fit into the plan. Launch your incentive plan with a meeting, and whether it be through email, or presenting stats where everyone can see them, make sure everyone is constantly aware of your team’s progress.

• Keep it tangible. Rewards and recognition tied to performance indicators are excellent motivators, but only if the rewards are obtainable. Rewards should be based on objective standards, rather than the opinion of management. When employees realize it’s not necessarily performance-based, but political, motivation tends to atrophy.

• Don’t neglect quality. Quality of goods and services often falls victim to the push for quantity. It’s important not only to gauge the numbers but to understand how they were achieved, too.

• Keep the pace. If you start out with a timeline, then never refer to it again, your staff will start to consider it a soft schedule, even if it’s not. Make sure that temporal progress is charted along with performance stats to help keep everyone on schedule.

• Defining benchmarks. Where to set your goals can be tricky, and industry-specific. A good starting point is to identify the averages and go from there.

Make peak periods special. The times your company is the busiest are crucial; you need your staff engaged and optimized. Offering special incentives during these times can help cut down on absences and give an extra boost during stressful moments.

• Real-time makes a difference. Wallboards displaying real-time overall and individual performance are powerful tools for both management, and your staff. Such displays allow management to keep a close eye on what – and who – are working, and which areas need improvement.

Don’t neglect the power of employee recognition

All this can be summed up as appreciation. When employees appreciate the role they play in the company and community, they work harder, but if management is silent, they’ll probably feel unappreciated.

Recognizing members of your staff for doing a great job makes them feel human – they know they’re not just there to fill a gap. CrewHu offers easy-to-use employee recognition tools that seamlessly incorporate your company goals. If you’re interested in bringing your staff’s performance to the next level, we encourage you to explore our employee recognition software today!