The 3 Different Methods for Motivating the 3 Different Employee Types
No one enjoys experiencing staff fluctuations, because when employees quit, there is a huge impact on team productivity. This eventually leads to negative client feedback, and ultimately it’s very expensive for a company to adapt, hire, and motive new staff members.
The competition for seasoned and skilled human resources creates additional challenges for companies in staff retention and motivation. Unfortunately, a common delusion among managers is that nothing works as effectively as money to improve employee job performance.
Let’s take a look on how to properly incentivize your staff and improve their job performance:
Incentives for High-Performing Employees
A company's highest performers typically are highly competent and always highly motivated. While these high-performing individuals don’t usually need to be incentivized to do their jobs, they do need incentives to stay with a company and not seek better opportunities.
Offering upwardly mobile positions to these employees—allowing them to feel they are contributing more to the overall success of the business—is a good way to keep employees; however, don’t let your employees rise within the ranks only to get to a point where they are no longer competent. Allow opportunities for them to learn and grow by offering bonuses for contributing ideas to the development of the business.
Job perks are another valuable incentive for high-performing employees. One perk you can offer is unlimited paid time off. While you might think that employees would take advantage of you and not come to work if they didn’t feel like it, on the contrary, giving employees time off to volunteer or pursue creative endeavors only results in happier employees.
Incentives for Middle Performers
The middle performers of a company are usually positioned for the most improved overall performance. An outstanding employee incentive program will help them to increase their skills and become more motivated—and this will help increase their performance levels.
Offering an incentive of praise is a great way to incentivize middle performers to improve. Dmitry Karpovich, CEO of Oxagile, says, “One way to praise employees is by installing a kudos box in the office, where any and all employees can drop small tokens of appreciation for their coworkers. These could be notes or even small gifts.”
Rewarding employees with gifts and praise also creates an environment of friendly competition among coworkers, as most employees like to be honored in front of their peers.
Incentives for Low Performers
The lowest performers are usually lacking in training, skills, focus, or motivation to perform better. An incentive program can have an impact on these people to move to higher levels; it can also reveal which employees are well-suited to their positions.
Low performers benefit from goal-oriented rewards for finishing projects and achieving goals, as well as from honors like "employee of the month." Other incentives like catered lunches or 15-minute massages can go a long way to motivate employees to perform better.
