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In today's ultra-competitive recruiting and hiring environment, retaining current employees is a crucial component of your business’s success. While a good salary is a strong start, monetary compensation is not the only way to reward — and, most importantly — keep your employees.

The evolving nature of today’s workforce demands that employers look for more creative ways to attract and retain talent. Increasingly, flexibility, purpose, growth opportunities, and belonging factor into prospective and current employees’ decision-making about where they work. None of these necessitates a big price tag. However, for many organizations, they represent a shift in thinking and attitude around how employees are managed and how business is conducted.

Here are six recommendations for improving your employee experience without breaking the bank.

Offer flexible schedules, work-from-home options, time-off rewards

Each employee’s life is likely to be different, so one-size-fits-all scheduling can be restrictive. What seems ideal for a twenty-something part-time student may not be the dream schedule for a working parent who lives in the suburbs. Allowing for flexible work hours not only reduces the need for micro-managing timesheets, but it also alleviates some pressure from your workers. If a sudden traffic jam strikes, they should not come running into the office, panicked, in fear of being reprimanded for being late.

The same mentality should apply for work-from-home options. It can be built into your employment offer, to be used at the employee’s discretion, or as a reward, based on seniority, sales goals/quotas, etc. Additional personal days can be calculated and accumulated on the same basis.

While this loose structure may seem like chaos to some, it’s important to note that the kind of employees any hiring manager wants to onboard and keep are not going to be the type to abuse these privileges. A little trust can go a long way in making the right type of worker feel valued.

Provide opportunities for training

Continuous training is an important component in keeping employees engaged because it can help reduce complacency and stagnancy. If you allow your team opportunities to build on their knowledge and training, they will feel challenged, and in turn, bring better results to their role.

Consider allowing for training outside of their respective field as well. Learning and developing skills outside their role may not only build confidence in your workers, but it may also show you rising stars you didn’t know you had among your team. This can include conferences and events in your area, as well as training capsules hosted by various teams in your organization.

Recognize large and small achievements

Employees should be rewarded when they meet large goals as well as smaller milestones. Being genuine in recognition is key, and this is especially true when it comes to acknowledging your employee’s accomplishments. Your people want to feel valued for their hard work, but they do not want to feel infantilized for submitting a report on time, or following email etiquette correctly.

Giving verbal recognition in a public way, such as during a team meeting, can be a good option. Use a meeting to formally recognize someone’s efforts or results, if they are the type of person to be comfortable with that type of attention. Some employees may find more genuine value in private recognition.

Choosing the right achievements is key. Pick moments that feel natural — if you were in their shoes, what types of acknowledgments would you like to receive?

Reduce supervision

Employees appreciate independence. Autonomy taps into a deeper, more personal motivation, and boosts creativity and productivity which leads to a more successful business. When an employee or team has proven they’re highly capable, sometimes the best reward is to be trusted to continue performing well with reduced oversight.

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Be sure to not fall into the false “no news is good news” trap, however — check in with your team regularly, but strive for a more hands-off where possible. They will continue to feel your trust, but not feel forgotten.

Catered lunches

It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it’s a classic for a reason. Free lunch, whether frequent or occasional, is a simple and effective perk. It brings your team together in a more social way, instead of having them all scatter off to various fast food counters in the neighborhood on their break. By assembling everyone in one place for mealtime, you help build a sense of camaraderie amongst your team. Positive workplace relationships are a huge part of a happy work-life for any person.

Bonus tip —choose healthier food options. Healthier diets create healthier employees, so encouraging better health choices can reduce the need for sick days and increase productivity.

Fun social events

Team-building activities are a great way for employees to get to know each other better. Leaders that create a more socially engaged workforce can keep their teams working well together longer.

Celebrating team or company achievements and milestones with a party is another great way to encourage teamwork. It doubles as recognition for an individual’s role in this larger-scale success, as well as pride in being part of a team with successes worth celebrating.

Timing is everything

While all these recognition tools can be successful, it’s important to use them with intention. They should not be used as a consolation prize when a promotion or raise is deserved, or as a last-ditch effort to boost morale. They are part of an ongoing culture of employee engagement, so be sure to be mindful when you use them. Being genuine and well-timed is the key to any good recognition.

Recognition in the palm of your hands

At Qarrot, we understand the importance of employee engagement. We make employee recognition easy, fun, and effective for small to mid-sized organizations by providing a complete solution.
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Book your demo today to see more about how Qarrot can help you be leaders in employee engagement!

A startup culture is often defined as one that respects the individual, values creative problem-solving, open communication, and a flat hierarchy. It focuses on its team members and promotes adaptability at every level. Having a clear vision, shared values, and a commitment to success are all likely key ingredients to early success in a startup.

But how will you maintain your startup culture as the company grows?

What is Startup Culture?

Firstly, what makes startup culture so unique? It’s about a clear identity, growth strategy and relationships, all based on the company’s core values. There are typically 4 key components that make up any successful startup culture:

1. Value of the individual

In the fast pace of a startup, it’s easy to get lost in the next milestone, or the larger goal. It’s important to highlight that each worker is a key piece of a larger puzzle, and that their contributions are valued. A timely, genuine "thank you" from a leader goes a long way toward engagement.

Startups can have high turnover rates, as their pace and structure is not for everyone. It’s important to acknowledge the value of the individuals who continuously add not only to the success of the company, but to the culture itself.

2. Flat Structure

In a flat structure, decision-making occurs at the staff level; it doesn't happen in closed meetings, reserved for a handful of execs. Employees in a flat organizational structure are given significant independence with little to no supervision.

A flat structure is often more empowering for employees. It also encourages an atmosphere of openness and transparency that speeds up decision-making and company progress faster than a rigid hierarchy.

3. Openness

From open communication to an open-door policy to an open floor plan, openness is a key element of startup culture. Stemming from a flat structure, open communication allows people in various positions to share their ideas without closed-door meetings. An open floor plan can facilitate this by promoting more interactions between coworkers.

Related article: How to Incentivize Creativity, Innovation and Out-of-the-box Thinking

4. Business agility

New startups must adapt quickly to market pressures to survive. Trends, customer behavior, and competitors can change quickly. Business agility is the ability of an organization to:

• Adapt quickly to market changes - internally and externally;
• Respond rapidly to customer demands;
• Adapt and lead change in a productive and cost-effective way without compromising quality.

This agility is also required of the team at all levels, requiring that both individual and team goals are clear and in focus. Flexibility is key, from deadlines to projects, to employees and the culture itself.

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How do you keep your startup culture alive?

As a company grows from that initial team of a handful of driven minds in a 200 sq. ft. office, to a well-oiled, multi-department machine, it’s important to keep the components of your startup culture thriving. The types of personalities that are drawn to startups are often enticed by the culture, so maintaining will help keep employees engaged, and help with retention.

1. Remain transparent

Ineffective communication is a consistent source of frustration for workers in most industries. This can be especially true in startups, where the speed with which things grow and change can allow little time for lengthy emails or meetings. The type of communication that worked when you could simply tell a coworker an update across a small office will not work for a startup that now boasts 50+ employees.

Being on top of transparent and effective communication is essential, to keep that element of openness at your startup’s core.

Utilize internal messaging systems like Slack, which allow for channels to be created for topics, teams, projects, etc. Be sure these channels are monitored for relevancy, however. An abundance of unnecessary information is just as frustrating and confusing as a lack of information altogether.

Being transparent in all communications, be it in a messaging system, by email, or in meetings, will allow your team to feel they are trusted, and that their input in valued. They may have a solution to a problem that has not been presented yet. If they feel they have the space to share their ideas, productivity will increase.

2. Acknowledge contributions

Even though startup culture is about working as a team towards a common goal, it’s equally important to acknowledge the contributions made by individuals within the organization. In fact, recognizing a team member's contributions helps to strengthen their emotional bond to both the company and its culture.

This type of recognition can come in many forms, from tangible rewards, like gift cards or paid lunches, to additional paid vacation days, work-from-home privileges, among others.

Be sure that whatever form of recognition you chose, your employee feels that their contributions are being genuinely valued by the organization. They should not be working for a reward. Rather, they should feel an added sense of accomplishment when receiving one.

Related article: Employee Recognition – It’s Not Just About The Money

3. Listen to new ideas

Many employees hesitate to share ideas with higher-ups, so hold workshops or meetings that encourage the flow of new ideas. Having designated time or space for facilitating idea-sharing shows your team that you value their input. If your startup does truly embrace a flat hierarchy, these types of exchanges will only further promote that. These meetings can be weekly, biweekly, or monthly, depending on what works best for your day-to-day.

If in-person meetings are not possible as frequently as you’d like, be sure there is a designated virtual ‘space’ for your team to share their ideas. If you have an internal messaging application, create a group or channel designated to that purpose.

4. Be constantly evolving

As is core to the business of a startup, constant change and agility are necessary for the culture as well. Your business’s core values should remain unchanged, but the way they are applied in the everyday lives of your workers must evolve. Many companies fall into the “culture fit” trap – employees who do not fit their current way of working, those to question processes and procedures, who speak up often in meetings, are not a culture fit for the company.

When a company is small, it’s easy to focus on hiring those who fit the mold, as the dynamics of the team are very close and limited. However, for your company and its culture to get better, you need to add diverse ideas, experiences, values, and personalities to the mix.

By overly focusing on candidates who are a good “culture fit”, you are likely to miss out on a lot of incredible minds. You also risk creating a monoculture – one that doesn’t evolve over time and risks leaving those who don’t fit feeling alienated. While the team needs to keep up with the growth of your business’s success, your company’s culture needs to keep up with the growth of your team.

Related article: Motivating Different Personality Types

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Easy engagement that grows with you

With the pace of your business ever accelerating, employee recognition in a startup environment can easily fall through the cracks. Qarrot makes employee recognition easy, fun, and effective for small to mid-sized organizations by providing a complete solution.

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Book your demo today to see more about how we can help you be leaders in employee engagement!

It’s a given fact that employers have a duty of care to all employees, including Lone Workers. It's the responsibility of employers to ensure that the mental and physical well-being of all of their employees are cared for, especially since there is a growing number of employees silently suffering from mental and physical illnesses. According to the World Health Organization, over 264 million people suffer from depression and anxiety, which can gravely affect their productivity and performance. Both depression and anxiety have a great economic impact, amounting to US$ 1 trillion per year in lost productivity.

Fortunately, there are many simple ways employers can look after their employees. Pain Free Working explains that surveys have found that simple things work best to help them increase their productivity. Office workers enjoy having the ability to personalize their workspaces and work in places with natural light and better air quality. While it is easy to check on in-house employees and apply policies that will safeguard their mental and physical well-being, it becomes a challenge for employers when it comes to lone workers because they can’t exactly provide these things.

That being said, employers must look for ways to make lone workers feel included, and there are multiple ways to do this. For starters, employers can have meaningful conversations with the employees about the risks of working alone and, together, come up with plans to mitigate said risks.

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Here are some more tips that employers can follow to make remote employees feel included and cared for:

Have steady communication

One simple yet easily overlooked tip is steady and open communication. With how advanced technology is today, it's very easy to maintain informal conversations and, in turn, a better connection with your lone workers. Forbes highlighted how using collaborative software like Slack or even a closed Facebook Group can help employees get to know each other, inspire one another, and also spark each other's creativity.

Remember to include and recognize them

Your remote employers may not be with you in the office every day, but they are gravely affected by every project you take on and every decision you make. When under a tight schedule, it is all the more important to ask for their participation and opinion. The same principle also applies to every company celebration. Additionally, while it is easy to give recognition to an onsite employee, say during breaks, you have to take the time to find an opportunity to recognize remote employees in front of their peers to keep their morale and spirits up.

Have longer one-on-ones

Since moments that build rapport are scarce for remote workers, as an employer, you can make up for this by having longer one-on-ones. Business2Community suggests arranging weekly team calls to help your workers feel that they're still part of a team despite working alone. For even better results, set up a schedule where you spend at least a full hour of your time talking to each remote worker every week and make sure that you ask remote-specific questions. It also pays to ask questions about their career paths and listen to their goals and aspirations. Offer advice and, if possible, work together to find ways through which your company can help them achieve their long-term and short-term goals.

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Conclusion

It's no secret that employees work harder when they know the company appreciates them, and making your remote workers feel looked after could mean the difference between developing a long-term professional relationship with them and just being another "for-the-meantime" job. It may be hard to find ways to recognize their achievements at first, but luckily you can use specialized platforms to make this process easier.

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Book a demo with Qarrot today and see how it can help you connect with your team through positive praise!

Employee motivation is an incredibly powerful driver of performance in any organization. Whether you’re focused on improving productivity, boosting performance, or increasing retention, employee motivation will no doubt be central to your considerations. And yet, it’s tough to effectively manage and most days can feel equal parts art and science.

Management training usually provides helpful frameworks for areas such as effective communication, performance management, and how to manage different types of people. But all too often, the actions and behaviors that deflate employees the most result from simple oversight or a lack of consideration.

With that in mind, here are 6 mistakes that can kill your employees’ motivation:

Unrealistic goal setting

Do you work in a high-pressure environment that promotes tough goal setting? If so, it can be tempting to set unrealistically difficult goals for employees. While goals should be challenging to achieve, employees won’t buy into them if they’re not realistic. If left unchecked, a lack of buy-in can easily transform into demotivation and active disengagement. Similarly, this type of goal setting can impact a person’s physical and emotional health causing deeper issues within your team long term.

Tolerating poor performance

There's nothing more demotivating for your hard-working staff than to see the poor performance of someone else being tolerated. In fact, poor performance often has a double whammy for managers. When one team member doesn’t pull his weight, other team members often have to step up and do more than their share. This causes resentment but can equally leave those stronger contributors questioning their manager’s competence. A bad situation, no doubt about it.

Letting accomplishments go unrecognized

Recognition is a powerful motivational tool. And yet, it’s an unfortunate reality that so many employee achievements and contributions go unrecognized. All too often, the fast-paced nature of our work has us forget to communicate our appreciation to a team member or a co-worker for a job well done. This can leave employees feeling under-appreciated and taken for granted. This is a horrible feeling and a very powerful demotivator for those affected by it.

Lack of trust

Trust is built over time. But generally, when a new employee joins the team that period is the first 3 to 6 months on the job. As trust is built between the new employee and her manager and teammates, she should be given progressively more responsibility.

In theory, at least.

Sometimes a mistake occurs that puts that trust into question, and sometimes the manager is simply overbearing and not willing to delegate tasks that the employee is clearly ready to handle. Either way, a lack of trust is a very visible signal to the employee that her manager is not comfortable giving her more responsibility. This can be incredibly frustrating and deflating for individuals in this position. Moreover, if the manager handles tasks that should be done by the employee, then additional tension is created and serious demotivation ensues.

No team bonding or workplace fun

While a lack of workplace fun is not considered an egregious managerial oversight in our books, we feel strongly that opportunities for team bonding should be encouraged.

Not only does team building bring people together outside of their regular work context, but it also opens the door for better communication and collaboration. Organizations that rigidly ignore these practices often have siloed structures where poor communication and a lack of collaboration stifle innovation. Not very motivating.

Micromanaging

Micromanaging is a symptom of a lack of trust. The manager is simply not comfortable letting the employee execute the task himself and involves herself overwhelmingly in the process to ensure it’s completed to her satisfaction. The short-term result may be a higher-quality deliverable, but longer-term, the employee won’t feel trusted and valued. As with any lack of trust, tension can also build between the employee and his manager leading to a deteriorating relationship and disastrously poor motivation.

While some of these motivation-killers can be due to a lack of managerial training, often it’s more of a question of open communication between managers and their employees.

Actively communicating with staff and inviting their feedback is a great place to start. Most direct reports won’t be shy to let you know if something’s bothering them. By openly and actively listening to them, you’ll learn what steps may be required to address the situation and stave off a larger motivational issue.

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Don't let these 6 common mistakes kill your employee motivation: book a demo of Qarrot to see how we can help you engage and motivate your workforce to go “above and beyond”!

Employee engagement is the key to employee alignment. As your company grows, your vision, mission, and values for your company can become diluted. This can sometimes lead to organizational misalignment. A few signs of a misaligned company are:

• Difficulty scaling
• Decision-making is a long and complicated process
• Silos exist with little to no communication between them

The “not my department” mentality kills morale. That misaligned culture will not allow your company to scale and it will slow down the production and productivity of everyone involved.

‍So how can we encourage employee alignment, especially in times of growth?

Align vision, mission, and values

To align vision, mission, and values you first have to identify what might be hindering your company’s efforts to get employees behind its vision and creating misalignment. Sometimes it’s a simple policy that needs to be updated, but often misalignment is the result of something much bigger. Identifying the problem first will help you move towards solving it.

One of the most important factors aiding this process is proper and clear communication. Ineffective communication can lead to assumptions. Assumptions about what your company values may not align with the message or culture, you are trying to achieve.

For example, Company A has proudly introduced a new mission statement built around a culture of innovation. The CEO boasts about the creativity of employees, the new option for employees to allocate up to 20% of their time working on new ideas, and a rewards initiative to encourage employee involvement. However, prior to developing its new mission statement, Company A suffered from a highly siloed culture and poor cross-departmental communication. A lack of collaboration and communication between departments can stifle any innovation initiative, no matter how much boasting the CEO does. This culture misalignment not only sends mixed messages to employees, but it completely undermines upper management’s aspirations for Company A to become more innovative. The likely result of such a situation is more unengaged employees and very little true innovation.

First by identifying the problem, in this case, a highly siloed culture, upper management can develop a strategy to better align the company’s culture with its new mission. That strategy may include training for managers, smaller cross-departmental initiatives to initiate collaboration and communication, and encouraging employees to celebrate those behaviors.

Assess and measure

 “What gets measured gets improved.” - Peter Drucker

Misalignment between departments of a growing company isn’t a simple fix. Reporting on progress is important to assess if the re-alignment strategy is being effective. It’s hard to motivate multiple departments to report on progress if they don’t buy into the overall project vision first.

Once you can clearly and concisely communicate the benefit of better alignment, you need to develop certain KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, that will become critical indicators of progress toward your intended results. Every organization should know how to measure how well the efforts of their employees are impacting company objectives. KPIs provide a focus for operational improvement and create an analytical basis for decision-making.

Create goals that align departments

When you think about breaking down silos and encouraging better communication, change won’t happen overnight. A clear view of the outcome you want to achieve and a plan for moving forward are a great place to start. But cultural change is the result of adopted behaviors and actions and often requires active communication, support, and reinforcement. A gamification and rewards system can encourage the adoption of the behaviors and actions you want to encourage.

With Qarrot, you can create award campaigns for employees to participate in. Say, for example, the misalignment exists between department managers and Payroll. Payroll says employees are not filling out their time-sheets on time and this is putting stress of the payroll department incurring additional costs. Employee managers say they are putting pressure on employees to fill out timesheets, but they have no real way to measure success until Payroll contacts them again.

To encourage employees to fill out timesheets using a rewards and recognition system like Qarrot, the Payroll manager can set up an ongoing campaign to award points every time they record their action of filling out a timesheet. This offers the employee an incentive to fill out their timesheet, as well as a way for department managers to see who is, and who isn’t, participating in the process.

As your company grows, company alignment is critical. Aligning department efforts, and aligning employees to your mission, vision, and values of the company are as important as developing KPIs to communicate the success of your alignment efforts to the people who need to know.

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Ready to see how Qarrot can help boost your employee alignment efforts during times of organizational growth?

Book a demo or download our free Guide to Launching Your First Employee Recognition Program.

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As an employer, you have a duty of care to your employees. But what exactly does this mean?

‍It’s basically ensuring that the mental and physical health & wellbeing of your employees are being protected. And with one in five people experiencing mental health issues or illnesses a year, it’s no surprise that employee wellbeing has been the focus of attention for many employers.

This duty of care also applies to your lone workers. According to employment law, you’re required to carefully consider and address any areas thought of as a ‘risk’ to their health, safety, and wellbeing.

Although this duty is a legal obligation, you shouldn’t think of it that way. As well as meeting the legal requirements, it can also bring with it major benefits to your business and workers. When the wellbeing of your staff is looked after, they’re happier, motivated and more productive. And for your business, happier employees mean better engagement, increased retention and improved brand reputation.

‍In this piece, we’ll explain who lone workers are and highlight your legal obligation to them.

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Who do we consider "lone workers"?

It’s anyone that works in isolation and with limited supervision. With changes to the traditional way of working (9-5) and the increased availability of the internet, employers must be able to adapt in order to attract the best talent. One of such changes in the introduction of lone working.

Depending on the organization, a lone worker could be anything from a community nurse making home visits to an electric company employee carrying out maintenance on meters.

Other examples or lone/remote workers include:

• Estate agents
• Salespeople
• Site workers
• Postal staff
• Self-employed
• Utilities employees (meter readers, maintenance staff)
• Construction workers (surveyors, site workers, inspectors)
• Mobile workers (drivers, care/social workers, probation officers, service engineers, etc.)
• People working outside of the normal working hours (security guards, cleaners, etc.)

Your responsibilities for lone workers

The first duty you have to your employees is to access the risks of working alone and take reasonable steps to avoid or control them.

The process involves:

• Talking with your employees about the potential risks of working alone. You’ll then create a plan to control any identified issues. It’s worth noting, by law you’re required to consult all staff members on health and safety matters that concern them.
• Implementing procedures to ensure that risks are removed and control measures are in place.
• Training, instructing and supervising the employee on lone working procedures.
• Reviewing risk assessments regularly or after major changes to work practices.

While there are many benefits of lone working, it also comes with some risks to you and your employees.

In order to reduce risks, consider the following measures:

• Training employees on the risks involved with certain work activities and lone working as a whole.
• An appropriate supervision process.
• Adequate emergency and evacuation procedures.
• An effective communication routine between supervisor and lone worker.

Remember, the health and safety process you have in place for your off-site employees will be different from the one in place for your staff based in the office. But it’s also worth noting, you shouldn’t put your lone workers at more risk than you would your office workers.

Training for lone workers

You could consider training as it’s important for these types of workers. This is especially the case for those with little to no supervision. You should also consider training that teaches them to cope with unexpected circumstances and manage issues effectively.

Because your lone workers don’t have immediate access to their supervisors or other more experienced co-workers, providing them with extra training can come in handy to understand the risks involved in their work.

It’s also a good idea to put a lone working policy in place. The policy sets out what can and can’t be done while working alone. You should ensure your employees fully understand and follow the policy and procedures.

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Conclusion

Your duty of care as an employer is an ongoing issue and not just a one-off event.

Remember to review your lone worker policy often and update to account for any changes to employee duties, legislation and business trends.

Finally, remember to carry out regular reviews of risk assessments. This is especially important after any significant changes to the employee’s work environment.

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Interested in learning how an employee recognition and rewards program can keep your lone employees engaged?

Book a Demo with Qarrot today!

Motivate employees to do their best work has benefits for both the company and its workforce. For the organization the benefits are obvious, higher revenue, lower turnover, improved product quality, and so on. For the employee, the benefits are less quantifiable but we know that motivated employees feel valued, and employees who feel valued are more engaged with their work.

What motivates an employee to go the "extra mile?"

That seems to be a question that often perplexes business owners, management and stakeholders. A survey conducted on key trends impacting the workplace asked that very question. “What motivates you to excel and go the extra mile at your organization?” The survey involved over 200,000 employees in more than 500 organizations.

What did they determine to be the top motivators? Camaraderie, peer motivation, inherent desire to do a good job, and feeling encouraged and recognized. While, of course, money and benefits are important, this suggests that working in a particular environment has greater impact.

So what can we do that can make a huge impact on motivating your employees?

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Reduce workplace stress

Stress on the job and unhealthy work environments are not conducive to anybody’s desire to do a better job. It is essential for employers to recognize the connection between employee well-being and overall organizational performance. You can lower stress in your workplace a number of ways, including setting clear goals and roles, encouraging a culture of wellbeing, and through clear, candid communication.

Give them time off

Giving employees extra time off is a small gesture that goes a long way. According to Entrepreneur, it is the secret to increased productivity. Why? Good employees will simply “run out of juice” and require a little R&R from time to time. Giving them the time they need to recharge their batteries will have them operating at their best in no time.

Give them feedback

Most employees want to be recognized, to achieve this recognition they need feedback. Effective feedback motivates the employee to improve their job performance. It’s suggested to offer feedback regularly and not just at annual performance reviews. Annual conversations about past activities are not sufficient enough to motivate future productivity.

Host a company event

A corporate event is one way you can motivate employees. Company events are much more than just a chance for employees to gather. They are a great way to show them you appreciate their hard work. Whether you have an awards ceremony, a dinner, a summer picnic, or a holiday party, it doesn’t matter. Your corporate event can improve company culture, boost company morale and award your employees for a job well done.

Celebrate milestones and recognize achievements

Celebrating Milestones, such as work anniversaries and birthdays, and recognizing achievements help employees feel appreciated. Whether with cupcakes, balloons and banners or a more formalized rewards program, recognizing employees on milestone dates or for their achievements strengthens workplace culture helping to make your business a better place to work.

If you’re a business owner, manager or supervisor, you know how important it is to have a workforce that is motivated. Research shows that motivated employees tend to be far more productive than those who are not.

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At Qarrot, we understand Motivation

Motivate your team, company, or department to perform with full-circle employee recognition. With the help of our software, we can assist you in building a culture of thank you, improve morale, bring employees together and strengthen workplace culture.

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If you want to learn more about how Qarrot can work for you, book a demo! We’ll show you how to engage and motivate your workforce to go “above and beyond".

Engaged and motivated employees help customers, take pride in your organization, and improve sales as a result. They are connected to your overall business goals, embody the culture you encourage and become excellent ambassadors for the future success of your company.

So, what makes an employee motivated and engaged? Hiring the right employees is a great start, but once you’ve got people working on your team you’ll need to make the right efforts to create a positive motivating environment for them to work in. To do this you have to understand what motivates employees, and what employee engagement really is.

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Here are the top workplace motivators according to the Harvard Business Review

Role design

Every company is different, and there is no set formula for determining the appropriate design for your organization. Better designed roles help employers make the best use of top talent but also clarifies responsibilities to workers. Less confusion leads to higher performance.

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Organizational identity

This is all about your company culture and business objectives. A full-time employee working 40 hours a week will spend about 30% of their waking hours at work. Who wants to spend that amount of time at a place that is tiresome, or worse, toxic?

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Career ladders

We’re not surprised that opportunities for advancement made it so high on the list. As noted previously, why would an employee want to spend so much time at a job that had no opportunity for promotion?

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Community

Even without redesigning business processes, managers can help the overall motivation of their employees by encouraging better peer-to-peer, and manager-to-employee relationships.  Building trust amongst employees, providing opportunities for feedback, explaining the “why” behind the work of employees, are all ways in which community can grow.

When these top workplace motivators are working together, you’re much more likely to have a highly engaged and performant workforce.

According to a Gallup study, the businesses with engaged employees were 17% more productive and 21% more profitable than the businesses in the study with disengaged employees.

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How recognition can further turbo-charge employee engagement

In a recent survey conducted by Interac and their 1000+ employees, it was discovered that their number one complaint, regarding motivation, came down to a lack of appreciation from their managers. Not the job, or the hours they worked, not even the pay that they received for their performance, but the simple lack of recognition for a job well done discouraged them from doing their best work. The same study goes on to show that when managers recognized employees’ contributions, their engagement level increases by 60%.

Employee recognition programs have forever been on the radar of large corporations as a tool to foster employee engagement, but what about small businesses? Can they benefit from recognition programs and encourage motivation and engagement to increase productivity and profitability as well?

Of course, they can!

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Here are 3 way in which a small business can use recognition to motivate and engage their workforce

Character Awards

My son’s school uses monthly character awards to reward children who embody character traits of value in the school’s code of conduct. Small businesses can adopt this concept by choosing character traits that promote behaviors that foster a better company culture. This is similar to the Employee of the Month concept, but goes one step further. Not only will you encourage better behavior through recognition of positive behavioral traits, but if you include a peer voting system you could promote better business relationships as well.  Taking the opportunity to reinforce your company’s core values by tying a monthly recognition award is a win-win for everybody.

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Gamification

This concept sounds way more complicated than it is. Gamification of business processes, specifically routine tasks, can help motivate through friendly competition and boost the idea of community amongst your employees. Think of this as a real-life game where people receive rewards for hitting milestones. The milestones people achieve, as well as the rewards themselves, can be anything you want. Consider awarding badges (buttons, metals, stickers) for hitting sales quotas that employees can turn in at the end of the month for a prize! Or award trophies to top performers at the end of each week who are recognized at a luncheon or ceremony at the end of the month. The sky’s the limit here, but understanding the core motivators above can help you design games that will not only motivate and engage but also encourage performance.

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Express Gratitude

A simple thank you can go a long way to motivating people to do their best work. When we focusing on “why” in gratitude we can also help connect employees’ achievements to the overall organizational success. For example, after a good sales month, a company may host a gratitude meeting where management, not only thanks the workforce for their job well done, but includes the reason why they are thankful. It’s possible that by increasing sales that month they were able to meet a higher objective, or expand opportunities. By expressing gratitude to the employees, and linking their achievement to the goals achieved, it allows the employees to understand the value that their performance brought to the company as a whole. Everybody wants to feel that what they are doing offers value. Gratitude is the quickest, and simplest way to show that.

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In conclusion

When you understand how to motivate your employees and the reasons why recognition is so important for better employee engagement you have the tools necessary to make real decisions on the design of your rewards and recognition programs moving forward. Use these ideas provided, or come up with your own! Rewards and recognition are as unique as your business is, and the people in it.

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Let us help you promote a culture of thank you, a culture of appreciation, and encourage company success through gamification with our recognition software.  Motivate your team to perform with Qarrot. Book your demo today.

What is the one thing that would make most managers better? The ability to provide effective feedback to their employees.

We know employee feedback is important, but there is a proper way to provide feedback that will produce better business results. First, ask yourself a couple of questions:

1. Does the phrase "performance review" put your stomach in knots?
2. Are there particular employees you know will be more difficult to provide feedback to than others?
3. Do you dread offering criticism?

Honestly, if you answered YES to any of the above questions, you’re already in the wrong frame of mind for providing feedback that will actually offer value to your employees. Accurate feedback is the key to engaging people and keeping them on track. Feedback, when done right, with the right intentions, can lead to better business results by helping motivate employees to meet professional goals. Business success is the result of aligning professional goals with the overall goals of the organization.

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‍So, what’s the trick to providing effective feedback? Here are a few tips to consider:

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Remain constructive

Criticism isn’t always easy to take, let alone deliver, but if done appropriately, with enough thought, and the best intentions behind it, the benefit is that it should help to increase the productivity of the worker receiving the feedback. The constructive part of “constructive criticism” is in the plan to do better. It gives an employee an objective to work for. Non-constructive criticism, or griping if you will, will have the immediate and opposite effect. Nobody likes to be criticized but if it leads to growth it’s easier to handle and easier to convey.

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Be specific

Focused attention on particular feedback will have greater results than when combined with other issues. If the feedback you are giving to an employee is negative you may be tempted to start with a compliment, thinking it will help soften the blow of the criticism. This just muddies the waters of your message. If your intention is to provide feedback with the objective of changing a particular behavior or motivating for better performance, then the focus should be placed solely on that topic in your discussion, and on that topic alone. The same goes for a compliment. Praise goes a lot further and provides more value when not combined with any other motives.

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Don't wait

Quarterly and annual reviews are great! They can provide valuable insight as to how an employee is performing and meeting business objectives. They can provide areas to work on moving forward to the next quarter, or year, and offer benchmark data for overall employee performance. However, feedback that provides the best results is offered in the immediate. Issues need to be dealt with as they arise. Wins need to be celebrated as they occur!

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Know your audience

Depending on the type of feedback your managers are offering, and the personality type of the employee, you must be mindful that there’s a time and a place for everything. Never criticize publicly. Studies have suggested that public disapproval, or putting someone on the spot with negative feedback, can alienate and embarrass the employee. This will only lower their ability to process the feedback constructively. Subsequently, caution should be exercised in sharing positive feedback publicly too. Congratulations and acknowledgment for a job well done in a public setting is something to be left to your discretion. Some employees LOVE public acknowledgment when some loathe being the center of attention.

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Stick to performance

This is one of the hardest things to keep in mind when providing feedback to employees. We discussed remaining constructive, but more than that, stick to words that don’t discuss the personality traits of the employee. Focus on discussing “things they do,” rather than, “who they are.” The best way to help an employee acknowledge and be responsible for their habits or behavior is to discuss them, openly and without personal judgment. As soon as you start discussing overall personality you’ll lose their attention and worse, they could become resentful. Example, instead of saying “You’re a lazy team member, you’re always late!” try, “Your being late hurts our team performance.”

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Observe peer recognition

Do you have employees who are loved by their co-workers? Let them know it! Morale and engagement levels in any workplace strongly depend on how well people get along. It’s true that one bad apple can spoil the bunch. Praising positive team spirit can encourage staff to share that behavior and affect your overall company culture.

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Can you think of any other tips to help managers provide better feedback to their employees?

Employee recognition software can be a valuable tool for managers when providing feedback. Using software like Qarrot, employees can recognize one another and be awarded points for meeting or exceeding sales quotas, goals and objectives. These peer-to-peer and manager recognitions are immediate and favorable to the employee. Employees can turn in points as they earn them for gift cards or other prizes set by the company.

More than that though, managers can view, in real-time, as employees engage with each other. In the company feed managers can see as employers reward points, as well as comment on the achievements of others as they are earned in the system.

Managers can also quickly export reports to see who earned, or rewarded, points for a selected time period. The nature, and frequency, of an employee’s engagement with company programs, such as Qarrot, is a strong indicator of the overall engagement an employee has with their team, to their goals, and to their job overall. Nothing can better indicate a need for feedback, and coaching, than disengagement. Just remember to use the tips we provided above!

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Curious how Qarrot can help you provide better feedback for your employees? Book a Demo, we’d be happy to give you a look around our product and show you how it works!