An effective incentive program can be a key contributor to the success for a business. It can drive employee behavior and ensure everyone is working together to get the best results. But if it’s not designed properly it can lead to frustrated employees and poor business outcomes. If you want to experience more business growth, an employee incentive plan can take it to the next level.
So how do you design an incentive program that aligns the interests of your business and your workers? See our 5 tips for getting your incentive program right.
Understand Your Key Business Goal
When designing your incentive program, you need to have the end goal in mind from the start. It’s not as simple as saying that you want to increase sales or productivity. What are the specific outcomes you have in mind and what are the processes that contribute to them? That way, everyone will know what their role is in achieving your company’s goal and how it fits into a larger outcome.
Ask Employees What They Want From Their Plan
In order to get buy-in from employees, you to understand what kind of incentive program suits their needs. Are they looking for a system that rewards individual achievement or when a team reaches its goals? Are they looking for some kind of profit sharing arrangement, want equity or just looking for more ad hoc bonuses when appropriate? Whatever the answer, a consultative approach will ensure the biggest buy-in possible.
Make It Visible
Making sure key information is available can go a long way to ensuring your incentive programs deliver the results you want. Consider creating a dashboard or other form of representation to show how far teams are from their desired goal. Updates on progress will help keep your teams motivated and focused. It can also help to demonstrate that the management team is behind this initiative. Having a goal launch party is one tactic that is effective.
Consider Specific Incentives for Managers
Your team leaders have different roles in your company’s performance and you need to create incentive plans that reflect this reality. They should be rewarded for the success of their teams. As research shows that good managers lead to better team results, you need to incentivize good managers.
Choose a Program Duration
It’s important to have a clearly defined focus for your incentive program and a defined timeframe is a key part of that. We recommended to err on the shorter side as programs 12-18 months can be too long to keep people motivated. Consider 6 months if you have never done this before.
