Onboarding employees is such an important issue that organizations can partner with companies dedicated to helping get new hires integrated into your organization quickly. Along with making employees feel comfortable and getting them to be productive employees as soon as possible, don’t forget to include your new hires in your employee incentive program. I have five tips to help you introduce new employees to an incentive program and welcome you to add your tips in the comments section.
1. Create Incentive Program Flyers
Most organizations have some sort of welcome package for newly hired staff members. This welcome package includes handbooks, guidelines, safety information, contact information and many other pieces of information to orient a person. I have started creating flyers that promote the incentive program to newly hired employees. The flyer welcomes a person to the incentive program, discusses eligibility, lists a couple of program goals and lets a person know where to go for more information.
The purpose of the flyer is make sure that as soon as a person is hired and given information about the organization, he or she is also welcomed into the company incentive program. This initial flyer will help spread awareness of the reward program.
2. Send Follow up Emails
Within a couple of weeks after the person starts, follow up with an email to newly hired employees. This email should a link to the incentive program website and also the person’s log in information. For my larger clients, I usually maintain users on a monthly basis and send out a welcome to the program email to all new employees for the previous month at once. Emails should come from the employee’s manager or the company CEO in order to show the program is being promoted by a higher-up. By following up with a new employee and making sure they are aware of the incentive program, you can increase participation and acceptance.
3. Give Incentives for Participating
When you were a new employee, do you remember feeling overwhelmed or unsure of where to start? There are often many things that need and deserve attention of new employees and sometimes becoming familiar with the reward program can fall to the wayside. Clients of mine have stressed the importance of getting new employees to log in and check out their online accounts by giving incentives to new employees who log in for the first time, for adding their email address to their account to receive program updates or for linking to the company’s social media page such as Twitter or Facebook.
4. Get Management Involved
Managers and HR managers should invite new employees to participate in the incentive program. The most successful reward programs I help administer are the ones where management is behind the incentive program and encourages people to participate and take advantage of the program.
Some of the Human Resource Managers I work with also request participation and activity reports on employee login activity to make sure people who have not logged into the program have assistance logging in for the first time. These HR managers are dedicated to ensuring 100% of employees are familiar with the incentive program website and the goals of the program.
5. Level the Playing Field
In some incentive programs, leader boards and employee recognition spot light pages are created to showcase top performers. Leader boards can be done a number of ways but one common way is to list out the top ten point earners in the program. For a new person just joining the program, he or she may never be able to catch up to the top performers. I recommend that leader boards are re-set at least on an annual basis. This way the playing field is leveled and real competition can ensue.
For employee recognition spot light pages, be sure to include new people who demonstrate the right attitude or do something reflecting your core values. If you can try to give new people a chance to be included, then the program will be perceived as fair.
Once you have gotten an employee incentive program off and running, it is easy to forget that new employees may not be aware of the program or feel encouraged to participate.