Do you reward employees?

[Curtis Cunningham]

If you have your own business or employees, do you recognize their efforts with long-term service awards/gifts? If so, how?

[Bruce A]

If one of my employees performs above expectations, I buy him/her a Ferrari or Lamboughini of their choice and colour.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
No I don't, but if I had employees of course I would

[Woody]

I reward my staff every week. Its called a pay packet.

If they perform consistently well, they get the reward of keeping their job.

Cheers,

John W

[Hill Country Hack]

Originally Posted by Woody

I reward my staff every week. Its called a pay packet.

If they perform consistently well, they get the reward of keeping their job.

Cheers,

John W

I fully agree. I don't expect anything except to be compensated for my time and effort.

[kirbinster]

I treat them with respect and flexibility. That goes much further than gifts and rewards

[SusanH1970]

My employees get a roof over their heads and three squares a day.



Oh, wait...those are my kids. But they work their little butts off for me.

[SwissJon]

I get a yearly bonus based on my performance in 4 previously agreed aspects of my work.. If I bumble along, I get nothing, if I push myself beyond the call of duty I get a percentage of my annual salary.. It's quite a large percentage, so it's worth me pulling many late nights and weekends.

My previous boss didn't think it was worth rewarding his employees and spent any extra earned from the more hard working employees on himself.. When I left, a bunch of other staff left too, and he only had people that treated the job like a 9-5 (or rather 10-4 if you include coffee and cigarrettes and the amount of time to pack up at the end of the day) and his business went bankrupt.

I'd suggest therefore that even (Or rather "especially") in times like these where businesses struggle as much as employees, that employers treat their best employees better than their worst, and design a performance package to encourage extra effort. It's cheaper to give 10 people 10% bonus's at the end of the year than employ 1 person more, (If you take into account tax and insurance etc) and most people that are being well rewarded will put in efforts worth more than the compensation, especially if you compare their performace against someone with no motivation.

That way you will lose the slackers (They'll moan about how unfair life that they aren't getting the bonus's while they sit around the coffee room trying to decide what their next career move will be) and keep the hard workers, who will be so busy that they won't notice the slackers.

Motivating the good staff is the key.. I'd suggest you look at between 10% and 20% PERFORMANCE based bonus.. The bonus isn't an automatic right, it has to be earned. (Don't make the mistake the banks made)

[Izzy]

When I was doing landscaping there was no room for slackers. I had a certain set of "hell" tasks to weed them out. First week was hell week and no one in the crew was allowed to speak of it or hint that it would end soon. They had no motivation to do so because they knew they would end up carrying this guys slack.

As for compensation I paid competitively and then some. I always paid them time for lunch but it did not count towards overtime. Trying to pull that would get you fired. All holidays off, even Day of the Dead. Most of my crew was legal Mexicans here on work visa's. With the major holidays they always received a bonus check. Christmas was the biggest one.

At first I was running 1 crew. We would start early and end early. Eventually I was running a second crew that would finish out the day until dark. So we ran sun up to sun down and then some. There were times that I would be mowing a commercial lot 10:30 at night. I worked hard and never asked my crew to do something I could or would not do myself.

I was hard to work for but you were rewarded properly. These crews worked hard with perfection 99% of the time with no complaints.

[Curtis Cunningham]

What happens when an employee who has worked for you for a long time retires? Do they get the proverbial gold watch, or other alternative gifts?

[Izzy]

Originally Posted by Curtis Cunningham

What happens when an employee who has worked for you for a long time retires? Do they get the proverbial gold watch, or other alternative gifts?

NONE of my employees retired. This was an interim job, not a career.