Benefits Can Aid Employee motivation

Employee benefits should be on the mind of every company owner for very good reason. Today’s economic climate makes the business world a difficult place to survive in for all businesses. There is a pressure on profit margins that has probably never been as tough as it is today. Every managing director or small business owner should be looking at whatever they can do to make their business competitive and to be just that bit better than their competitors.

When focussing on how to move a business forward it is easy, in tough times to overlook the single most important asset that a business has – its people. Whether you are running a large multi-national business or an SME operation your people are key to your success. Look after your people and your people will look after your business.

Whilst they are a critical part of any success there is no doubt that they can be an extremely expensive resource so ensuring you get the best from that resource is very important.

Motivating a team of people is extremely important, especially when operating in a downturn such as the current one as any individual who watches the news can’t fail to be concerned about the picture presented in the media. You need to find a way of ensuring that staff feels valued at all times. If your business has been part of a merger it is likely that people will be feeling insecure at all times and if you have been in the unfortunate position of having to make redundancies then your team will be feeling very vulnerable.

Best practice documents show that the best way of motivating staff is to find small and frequently given ‘thank yous’. Publicly recognising performance with small rewards and suitable employee benefits that are attainable by everyone will have a positive effect on moral and will begin to counteract the negative messages that affect the way staff think and feel.

Incentives are very useful way of encouraging staff to go the extra mile at work. There is not more powerful management tool than saying thank you verbally and with some form of publicly recognised gesture. A well motivated workforce that regularly achieves above and beyond expectations could well be the one thing that separates your business from your competitors and in today’s competitive business world you should expect your competitors to be using employee benefits to achieve the best return from what is probably their most expensive and valuable asset.