Lack of an effective corporate reward scheme could be the cause of your business’s stunted growth.

What Is A Corporate Reward Scheme?

A reward scheme includes all the non-monetary, monetary and psychological payments that your company provides her employees, in exchange for work they do. A reward scheme could include both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.

Extrinsic rewards entail items such as better working conditions and financial payments, while intrinsic rewards are mostly psychological, such as job satisfaction, and a feel-good feeling.

Why Do Companies Have A Corporate Reward Scheme?

Career growth opportunities, company reputation and employee recognition, are top engagement drivers. It is no wonder, therefore, that companies invest in employee recognition, spending about 1% of payroll budget on their recognition activities.

Well, while this might sound like a somewhat heavy investment, it has been proven to be worthwhile, as shown in these 5 statistics on the benefits of investing in a corporate reward scheme.

• More engagement and stronger business results- It is reported that companies with the mature employee recognition approach are 12 times more likely to have strong business results, and 85% experience better engagement.

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• Improves employee retention- According to Forbes, the main reason why most employees leave their jobs is because they don’t feel appreciated. Hence, a corporate reward scheme works a great deal in retaining workers.
• Improves individual employee performance- Corporate rewards psychologically work as incentives, for employees to do their best. In fact, 60% of companies state that these incentives have driven individual performance.
• Lower frustration levels- Managers invest in strategic reward schemes since they result in 28.6% lower frustration levels, compared to those that don’t.
• Attracts better talent- According to the European Talent Survey, recognition for work is one of the top drivers of candidate attraction in the UK.

Investing in a corporate reward scheme is worthwhile. But, how do you ensure that it is strategic, and attractive enough?

How To Create A Corporate Reward Scheme

Create A List Of Employee Performance Expectations

Your employees will expect clear guidelines on performance expectations, and how to earn a reward. For example, you could set targets for your sales and marketing department, rewarding employees who make a certain amount of money for the company or sign up a particular number of clients.

This depends, however, on your organisational needs, such as customer retention, prospect-to-client conversion and customer service, as well as set standards for rewarding excellent work.

Create An Employee Survey

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As you will notice, your employees come from different social backgrounds, hence each subscribes to their own schools of thought, which sometimes causes conflict. To survive in such an environment, and still maintain healthy work relationships, an employee ought to have great tolerance levels.

To foster such behaviour, you could conduct an annual employee survey, to reward the most sociable, and tolerant employee, based on his peer reviews. This way, employees will enjoy a better workplace, which is one of the factors for attracting and maintaining top talent.

Determine The Types Of Incentives

This is dependent on your budget and how difficult the targets are for your employees. You could opt to host an office party, offer a monetary bonus, fully paid family holiday trips, promotion, certificate of achievement, or sponsor a short course.

To help you decide, we will look at 3 best ways to reward employees, other than money.

3 Best Ways To Reward Employees

• Promotional Gifts

Give your employees company-specific, valuable gifts, which will act as a source of pride and a sense of belonging. Remember to ensure that these gifts are top-quality and useful to the recipient. Also invest in great quality, flawless designs, as well as consult promotional gift vendors.

• Professional Development

Incentives are not always about fun and money. Perhaps an employee would want to become a master of what he does. So, to appreciate work well done, why not reward him with a book, sponsor him to a high-level conference, pay for a course, or pay for his membership fee for a professional body?

• Fun Activities

They say all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, right? So, why not reward a great employee, who is a foodie, with dinner at the best hotel in the UK. Alternatively, a paid family trip, tickets to the zoo, or tickets to a concert, can suffice.

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Final Word

Creating a reward scheme is a great way to improve your business. To make sure you start off correctly, set achievable goals, and ascertain that employees are well aware of the terms and conditions. Plan with your accounts team before hand, to guarantee that you can afford these rewards, and also remember that they don’t always have to be expensive. It could be a simple thank-you or a company promotional gift.