Summer living might be easy, but doesn't work seem harder? As co-workers leave for destination vacations and long weekends, it can be hard to stay motivated during the summer months. This week, I'd like to share five employee incentive ideas you can use to recognize employees and keep them engaged during the summer.
While everyone is taking turns going on vacation, someone is always left to cover additional workload. It's not easy juggling your own tasks plus sifting through someone else's inbox and finishing high priority tasks. It often means working longer hours and skipping lunches just to stay on top of things. When an employee does a good job covering additional workloads, he or she should be recognized for this performance. You can use a couple of employee incentive ideas like a simple thank you or a more formal email/conversation. If there is one person who you always turn to cover while others are out of the office, why not give them a reward for going the extra mile for you all the time too? If you have an employee incentive program, awarding the person points via an online nomination form is the perfect solution to recognize and reward employees.
On a warm, sunny day aren't we all just a little tempted to call in sick and head to the beach? Attendance during the summertime can be an issue for some companies. If yours is one of them, why not start rewarding employees for perfect attendance during the summer? A great way to entice perfect attendance is to offer employees their choice of a gift out of a certain price point. When the though of calling off comes to mind, your employees will also think of the kinds of rewards they will get for going to work and using PTO for a scheduled absence instead. I've had clients award as little as $100 for three months straight of no unexcused/unplanned absences with great success.
With a lot of people taking time off, it can be challenging to finish projects on time and on budget. A lot of coordinating and planning can go into making sure things are finished. For employees who do complete projects during the summer on time and on budget, you may want to consider rewarding them. There are many employee incentive ideas you can employ here: points, thank you letters, a gift, a promotion, just to name a few. Depending on the dollar value of the budget and the time constraints imposed on the employee, I've seen clients award anywhere from just $25 to over $1000 to employees for completing projects on time and on budget.
Summertime is perfect for putting together a company picnic, but planning an event for a company with numerous employees and making it fun for everyone can be challenging. From securing a location to planning a menu and games, a lot of time outside of a regular work day can be spent on planning a corporate picnic. If your event coordinator really goes above and beyond this summer for your corporate picnic, be sure to thank them with employee incentive ideas like a personal note and a small reward.
I live near Chicago and during the summer, there seems to be a new walk or run for charity every other week. There are so many good causes like the Move for the Kids 5k, Breakthrough for Braintumors 5k and the Avon Walk for Brain/Breast Cancer. Many of these have corporate sponsors whose employees help set up the event and volunteer during the event too. Many corporate employees take time off to participate in charity events during the week too. If your company is sponsoring an event or you have employees volunteering or participating in charity events, you could reward them as a part of your employee incentive program. Many companies have policies in place for rewarding employees who volunteer and give them recognition and points as part of their employee incentive program. If you don't have a formal policy in place, think about what kinds of employee incentive ideas would recognize and reward employees for helping out a great cause.
Hopefully these five ideas can help your employees make it through the summertime while keeping up performance and engagement. Have you developed employee incentive ideas for your incentive program specifically for summertime? Please share your feedback in the comments.