You should be kicking yourself for not using these 18 staff incentives

When we talk about staff incentives we find some people think we’re talking about the kind of toxic, cash-grabbing, amoral environments you’d see in a film about Wall Street. The reality is considerably different.

Simple, low budget incentives make it much easier to get staff to hit targets which aren’t directly related to their work outcomes. These incentives are linked to outcomes which make your workplace a better place to be, help customers and improve the company in other small but important ways.

18 activities you could attach an incentive to:

• Signing customers up to your support portal to drive down the burden on your call centre staff.
• Getting customers feedback surveys filled out to generate a better idea of customer experience in your company.
• Suggest plausible, workable ideas which could improve efficiency or effectiveness in teams.
• Ideas for services or products which could be introduced to improve the company’s offerings.
• Staff giving up their time inside or outside of work to help with charitable projects supported by the company.
• Taking product or service focused quizzes to demonstrate ideal levels of knowledge around the company’s offerings and services.
• Pointing out successful cost-saving opportunities.
• Rather than let a damaging working culture fester, promote employees taking care of themselves and reward employees for time spent in the gym, miles walked or classes attended.
• Successfully selling warranties or insurance on products sold.
• Getting existing clients agree to see tech demos for new products or services which complement their current use.
• Reducing waste in the office to save money and perform better with your corporate responsibility targets.
• Non-sales staff bringing warm leads or quality opportunities to the new business team.
• Generating good customer reviews on Facebook, Google, Trustpilot, Feefo, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Glassdoor or similar.
• Coming up with solutions for potential roadblocks like changes in legislation around your products or competing products and services from competitors.
• Making follow up support calls to customers while they get used to new products to maximise their good use.
  Submitting articles, or ideas for articles, to the team who handle your internal communication newsletters and emails.
• Taking part in professional development courses, like completed digital modules to expand employee knowledge about their work.
• Reaching out to moribund clients to rejuvenate old business.

When the behaviour you’re trying to incentivise is easily quantifiable you can introduce an aspect of light-hearted competition. This could be a first-past-the-post contest, league table or threshold system to determine how rewards are earned through incentivised behaviour.

The rewards attached to staff incentives don’t have to be high value, and in fact it’s better if they’re not. A high value cash reward prompts employees to discard their core work roles, while money can bring out ugly behaviour among peers. Lower value, non-cash rewards also have trophy status among teams, giving them a second life as a prized reward.

Make sure the entry criteria are equitable for all members of a team to avoid friction and infighting over an unfair qualification process. Rewards could be dished out to individual team members or given out to teams as a whole for meeting targets.