Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
How to incentivise your employees
Many successful farmers will tell you that a good team of workers is one of their business’s greatest assets. To build a motivated team for your operation, start by understanding how best to incentivise your staff.
Research shows, and common sense dictates, that rewarding and incentivising employees is an effective method of improving employee productivity and company morale. If you carry this out properly and officially recognise the contribution they make to the business, they may be inspired to become more engaged in their tasks and motivated to work harder. Contented, motivated staff, in turn, means that you are far less likely to experience high staff turnover, which can support long-term business growth.
To set up an employee incentive and reward programme, you will need to carry out some research and understand what would really motivate your employees, how often they would like to be incentivised, and which forms of incentives they would prefer, as every individual and team is unique.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF INCENTIVES
Below are four categories of incentives that you could use as a guideline:
• Compensation incentives
These include bonuses, salary or wage increases, and company profit sharing. The incentive is related directly to employee remuneration and can be paid out in the form of cash or dividends. This type of incentive is often seen in the citrus and wine industry, where farmers extend company shares to workers who have worked for the company/farm for a number of years. Share ownership has the additional advantage of including workers in the decision-making process of the organisation and spreading risk in the management of the organisation.
• Recognition incentives
These include awarding employees with certificates in recognition of their service or achievement, and is a way of expressing gratitude to employees for their hard work. A manager could announce an employee’s accomplishment during a company meeting or review, for example, or an employee could be sent a personal note or email of thanks for his or her hard work and dedication.
• Rewards incentives
Rewards incentives include, but are not limited to, gifts, vouchers, monetary rewards, awards, and/or doing something in kind for your employees, such as giving them a day off or reducing working hours for the day. You could also establish a programme whereby staff members are rewarded for recommending someone for a vacant position within the company, or for providing the company with a business lead that increases sales or revenue.
• Appreciation incentives
These may include company celebrations such as year-end parties, birthday celebrations, excursions, events and lunches. This is a way in which an organisation can communicate directly to its employees that they are valued and appreciated, and could perhaps be used to announce rewards to certain individuals.
THANK AN EMPLOYEE PUBLICLY AT A COMPANY MEETING, OR SEND A PERSONAL NOTE OF GRATITUDE
GET BUY-IN FROM ALL EMPLOYEES
Not all incentives will necessarily be seen as positive by every employee; in fact, they could even cause divisions in your workforce. Make every effort, therefore, to understand what is important to your staff and what kind of company culture you want to promote within the organisation, and plan your incentive programme accordingly.
There are no strict rules about how often incentives can be awarded; they can be given out monthly, quarterly or yearly, or even be directly related to each task performed or milestone achieved. Equally, they can be offered to an individual or a group.
An incentive programme is just one way of sending a positive message to employees to reinforce the type of behaviour that you expect from them. Carried out carefully and diligently, they can drive positive engagement, increase productivity, and improve the quality of work from all staff members.