Rewards programme creates a happy spin
dubai — Luxurious hotel stays, spas, movies, fun outing for kids and electronics are just a few of the rewards the Community Development Authority - Dubai is giving away to its employees on the basis of their performance at work. The authority has introduced a ‘happy rewards programme’, wherein employees are rewarded points, which could be redeemed in the form of luxurious vacations and gift items.
After launching their Customer Happiness Centre to boost the happiness of the community in September, the CDA has introduced this initiative, designed to motivate the employees to work hard and achieve the organisational goals. It also encourages inter-department cooperation and support, thereby creating a happy work culture.
Explaining the ‘happy’ system, Mohammed Khalifa Lootah, Head of Employee Relations and Happiness Department, said: Each team manager is given three coupons per month to give to the best performing team member. Each month, whenever the team managers find any of their team members achieving their targets and goals of the organisation, they award their employees with these coupons.
The team members deposit their coupons with the Happiness Department and can redeem them with the rewards from the CDA gift menu.” Employees who have extra points can even share them with his colleagues.
“The initiative has given the work culture at the CDA an extremely positive spin! Targets are being achieved on time, staff is happy and the atmosphere at work is energetic,” he added.
The team manager in a department can gift the coupon to an employee from another department as a token of thanks, if the latter helps with some work in the former’s department. “The programme has made operations very smooth and hence the culture of cut throat competition here has transformed into that of help and support,” Lootah said.
Employees are more excited, willing and motivated to take on more work, Lootah said.
“Employees are now willing to work harder and go the extra mile for work. They are willing to cooperate with other departments and get more work done. It has turned out to be such an excellent programme.
Employee happiness boosts productivity as the employee first needs to be happy and love his or her job in order to be efficient. And that is why we instituted this rewards programme,” Lootah concluded.