Motivating Employees with Recognition and Rewards Programs

Are corporate gifts a part of your incentive program? Results from Incentive magazine's 2013 Corporate Gift IQ Survey prove that corporate gift giving has increased among many industries, leading a fair amount of people to believe that the economy in these industries is steadily improving. The surprise doesn’t end there. Surveys also show that the average total spend on corporate gifts has also increased. 

While corporate gift giving occurs for a number of reasons, the number of gifts given for employee recognition has also increased dramatically. Employee recognition gifts rose from 38.3 percent in 2012 to 51.5 percent this year.

Sure, one reason for this spike in gift giving could be that the economy is improving. Or maybe organizations are starting to realize that by rewarding gifts to outstanding employees they are in turn driving employee engagement. By rewarding employees for exceeding company standards, you are not only demonstrating your appreciation, you are also giving other employees incentive to work harder. They have a clear example of what exceeds company standards, and with that they can set goals for themselves.

Although corporate gift giving is only one way to further engage employees, it seems to be a tactic that more and more companies are turning towards. If you are interested in learning alternative ways to drive employee engagement, visit our website at www.inwardconsulting.com. 

How Leadership and Culture Impact Employee Engagement

Why is culture powerful? What specific criterion is necessary for developing a strong, strategically relevant culture that is likely to enhance your organization's performance? Before delving into this question, it is important to have a firm grasp on what culture is. According to California Management Review, "Norms—legitimate, socially shared standards against which the appropriateness of behavior can be evaluated—are the psychological bases of culture.” It is undeniable that company values are a key factor in developing a successful culture within an organization.

Strong cultures depend on two characteristics within the value category. The first being high levels of agreement among employees about what is especially valued. If each and every employee has a firm grasp on what values the company holds above all else, they are less likely to fumble through day to day activities, unsure of what to give the most attention to in order to succeed at whatever mission they have been tasked with.

The second characteristic is the high level of intensity felt by employees about these values. It is pretty obvious that if an employee honestly believes in the values held by the organization, their efforts are going to reflect it. If both of these characteristics are high, the end result is a strong culture, and vise versa.

So how does leadership fit into all of this? Creating and honoring corporate culture is a responsibility held by the leadership team. While leading through culture is a highly effective method, it is the leadership team’s responsibility to act on this strategy, and it is their responsibility to make the most important values clear and unwavering. If you are interested in learning more about how you can engage your employees through strong leadership, visit our website at www.inwardconsulting.com.

Big Data: Building your Optimal Workforce

How can HR departments recruit better hires, experience less turnover, increase productivity in their employees, and have  more effective processes overall?  The simple answer to this is with Big Data. A recent article from Modern Survey argues that big data should be an imperative part of HR business processes. The idea of Big Data is to take numerous databases and processes and synchronize them to function together, almost like an orchestra.  In return, your company will be able to “harness and optimize” your workforce.  Using Big Data allows HR to identify the best hires possible via predicative analysis.

In order to create the ideal workforce with strong analytics, be sure to kick-off your research with the following three steps: 

1)  Ensure that data is collected consistently over time,
2)  Implement strong management “with a good set of business questions for study,”
3)  Involve a competent analyst who understands your business.

These steps allow HR teams to predict who will succeed at a company, who may not be a good match, and how engaged an employee will be after one year of employment.  This data even allows HR to determine when someone is close to leaving a company within a year.  To gather accurate results, HR should be assessing performance and engagement annually and for the best results, assessment should be completed quarterly.  Being able to analyze and predict all of these pieces of information can help a company save a significant amount of money in the long run and enable them to target areas of improvement within the company.  While at first it may seem time consuming to put time and effort into analyzing this data, it can ultimately prove to be a good investment for your company.