Incentives that motivate?
In recent months I’ve had a growing group of clients ask for guidance on how to best incentivise their high performers and ‘must retain’ staff.
It seems that this challenge is increasing for many organisations. Promotion opportunities are restricted by current lean organisational structures, pay rises are compromised by budgetary restrictions (especially if enforced by an overseas parent) and funds for bonuses are tight.
We see this reflected also in the candidate market, both in candidates who approach us expressing interest in a move, and in response to our approach with a Search mandate – opportunities for progression are limited, scope for pay rise and bonus are minimal and the current employer seems to pay scant interest in the development of staff.
As an employer facing this situation, it can be challenging to use traditional means to motivate employees. Maximizing the effectiveness of the resources you have to deploy is critical.
Being mindful of employees’ personal motivations and working to develop solutions to satisfy these in as cost-effective manner can be beneficial. Without altering contracts or investing significantly in systems to support productivity, can you enable you key people to work from home if they demonstrate both a capability to do so and that this will motivate them from a lifestyle perspective?
If employees focus on purely financial motivations, does your current bonus structure motivate them to over-achieve? Are rewards clearly linked to individual outcomes with concise metrics and explicit milestones? The most successful monetary bonus structures should be concise which my clients deploy have straight-forward goals, regular progress check-ups and are wherever possible link individual performance metrics to business strategic goals or EBIT.
Salary and remunerationsurveys, employee engagement initiatives and other consulting support can be provided to give guidance, but first and foremost let’s look at how connected employees feel to their managers, the managers to the strategic leadership and overall at how the strategic priorities are referred into organizational objectives and individual employees’ goals. Bridging any gaps in this chain first and foremost can lay the ground for a motivational culture, in which incremental shifts in reward frameworks and working conditions will see compounded increases in productivity and profit.
Feel free to get in touch if you’d like to discuss incentivisation in your business.
by Tim Collings
