Rewarding Your Small Business Employees
You’ve heard of the infamous corporate retreat, where multinationals drag their exhausted, cynical employees to some National Park to engage in meaningful team-building exercises that no one wants to participate in. But, these are huge companies with money to throw at whatever they feel like, for small- and medium-sized businesses, rewarding your employees isn’t always as simple, there’s only so far that motivation can take you.
How then does a startup find a way to give back to those who have sacrificed their time to help build your business from the ground up? You can’t splash out on elaborate bonuses, and you surely can’t whisk them away on coaches and pay for their cabins, food, and whatever else, even if you only have twenty employees.
HAPPY HOUR
Sometimes called ‘Social Hour’ if you’re company doesn’t feel comfortable serving their employees alcohol, the Happy Hour is a way to help build team spirit as well as relationships. Giving your employees a chance to spend time together outside of the constraints of the professional environment can raise morale and give them something to look forward to every week or month.
This can be done without having to splash out, whether Happy Hour is conducted in the office or at a local establishment. Drink and meal deals, themed nights and the like are in abundance nowadays, and so there’s no limit to what, where or how you choose to reward your employees.
TAKE A TRIP
Kind of like a corporate retreat, but not really. With such a small amount of people working for you, there’s no need to book out a cavalry of coaches, but instead investing in permanent company transport can save a lot of money in the long run.
Some businesses take advantage of used vans for sale and purchase them to be able to whisk their employees away for a day out, attending a conference or whatever else you might have in mind. This means your company can arrive together, leave together, and not worry about anyone getting lost along the way.
SHOW APPRECIATION
As a CEO it can be easy to get swept up in profit margins, budgeting and just trying to keep the company going from day to day. While this is vital for any successful business, it can lead to founders neglecting to demonstrate how much they appreciate their staff, after all, if it weren’t for them, there would be no company to speak of.
Appreciation costs nothing. A kind word here or an announcement of gratefulness there can help improve employee morale, particularly during the low moments. By giving your employees an incentive to keep up their hard work, you never have to worry about the dreaded absenteeism, or even worse, presenteeism.
Cultivating a harmonious office culture isn’t easy, and for SMBs, it is even more vital to retain an environment of happiness around the office. You might have started the company, but it’s the people you have brought onboard that are keeping the whole business going. Without them, you wouldn’t have a business at all, so, even if the money is tight, there are still ways to reward all their hard work.
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