4 Employee Reward Ideas That Can Destroy Employee Engagement

by Jacqueline Martinez Feb 11,2016
Engagedly
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The People Strategy Leaders Podcast

with Srikant Chellappa, CEO

Nobody wants to destroy employee engagement.  Rather, most managers and leaders would like to foster engagement, especially with the help of rewards. But sometimes, the best of ideas crash and burn because they do not keep the following four points in mind.

Be Culturally Mindful

An office is not composed of 20 people who all possess the same mindset and outlook on life. No one person is the same as the other. An office is composed of individuals and that is something you should keep in mind when creating an employee reward program. For instance, if one of the items in an employee reward program is a coupon for a night out at a restaurant that is known for its delicious bacon burgers and the employee who receives it is Muslim or staunch vegetarian, you can consider that an epic failure. It implies a lack of thought and consideration and insinuates that you think much of the employee since you did not bother to put much thought into the gift.

When Reward Promises Are Not Delivered

As a part of the new employee reward program, you are offering your employee free passes to the gym. But if you do not give your employees time to go to the gym to use that free pass that you’ve provided, that free pass is essentially a reward that means nothing right?

Also Read: 7 Proven Ways To Be A Better Leader In The Workplace

Lack of Thought

Take a little time to know about the employee who’s getting the reward. And then put a little effort into giving them an appropriate reward. The same reward across the board is not going to work for all employees. Rewards are always better when they are meaningful and personalized.

Do Away With Generic Awards

Generic awards are really terrible. And here’s the thing, a majority of employees do not give much value to them. They are redundant and do not make employees feel great. In fact it becomes possible to game the system with respect to generic awards because they are based on tangible data that can be calculated. So instead of all employees working hard and earnest towards and award, what you will get is a mixed bag and in the process a few disgruntled employees as well.


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Author
Jacqueline Martinez
Director of Marketing

Jacqueline Martinez is the Director of Marketing at Engagedly, where she leads initiatives to fuel the marketing-to-sales pipeline through strategic content management, revenue operations, and thoughtful mentoring. She is a growth-focused marketing executive with extensive experience driving multi-million-dollar revenues across SaaS, technology, real estate, oil & gas, and financial services industries.

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