When you are looking for ways to improve your business output, there are a few options available to you. You can hire more employees so that you are able to accomplish more work, but this comes with the cost of an additional salary. You can try and find ways to streamline work where possible, but this comes with the risk of cutting corners and doing less quality work. Or you could try to get employees to do more work, often with incentives. Here are a few ideas that you can use to provide your employees with bonus incentives that will actually increase productivity.
Cash Bonuses
The first method that you can try to provide employees with bonus incentives is to go with the classic cash bonus approach. Cash is king and at the end of the day, offering your employees better compensation for completing more work and hitting lofty goals and targets is a time-tested approach. While cash bonuses may be somewhat basic, they do offer a direct one for one exchange of more work for more money. The problem with this approach is that once you start, you can’t really stop, as it will be perceived as a decrease in pay by your employees, which can lead to high turnover and dissatisfaction.
Alternatives to Direct Compensation
Another way that you can provide employees with bonus incentives is using alternatives to direct compensation. These approaches may seem a little more complex, but it can actually be more successful. You could offer more employer matching to 401k contributions to your top employees each month as one option. Or you could offer stock options to employees who hit targets. A C-corp structure allows you to give employees stock options. Structuring as a C-corp comes with a lot of other benefits as well and is worth considering for your business.
Gamify Your Incentives
The final thing that you can do to provide employees with bonus incentives is to gamify your incentives. Gamification is the process of adding game style features, like points scoring, levels, and rewards, to non-game activities and events. Gamification has been shown to work on the reward center of our brains in a huge way, and lead to more engagement and productivity. Try to gamify your targets whenever possible for the best incentive engagement.
Getting your employees to engage more productively at work doesn’t come for free. You are going to have to offer bonus incentives for bonus work. Follow these three tips for the most successful incentive program possible.
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