The challenge is to find the reward tools that motivate the majority of employees. Sometimes it's enough to think of a small tangible thing, but small tokens of appreciation can be very motivating.
Generation Z already accounts for almost 25% of jobs in Hungary. For them, flexible working hours, opportunities for career development and personalised rewards are often more important than a fixed cafeteria package. We've put our heads together, looked at our clients' experiences and created the most straightforward 15+1 point reward package for you to choose from! Let's get started!
No reward without work, no victory without effort, no winning battle without risk - Nora Roberts
1. Branded, personalised products
The first thing to do is to look around the office, the warehouse and see what you have that can be given as a reward. Company t-shirts, canteens or other rep gifts are available in most cases, so use them! You wouldn't believe how much some of your employees love this stuff.
If you want something extra, make your own unique repi stuff. For example, what if every company mug had your employee's favourite pet on it?
2. Subscription to a magazine, music
Do your employees spend most of their time in front of a computer? Think about what you could do to help or improve their time there! An online subscription to hvg.hu? Or a Spotify premium? Everyone needs to relax while working, and for a company, a subscription is a trivial expense. Do colleagues use an internal project management system to make their work easier? It may do the job, but they would certainly welcome a pro version or some kind of upgrade to further enhance the user experience. The possibilities are almost limitless, but it's important to know your needs!
3. Let's decorate the office together!
Here too, there are plenty of options. Let's start with plants that make the workplace greener. A green environment can be very motivating for employees. Let's support them. Let them find out what kind of plant they want, nurture it and grow it. But it is also important to know who needs what. You don't need to think big, a cactus can brighten up the atmosphere! Plant together with your team members!
Of course, you can decorate with more than just plants. We can take this further by allowing the team to choose together which painting to put on the wall, or what colour to paint the wall. The range of possibilities is wide, involve the team, the aim is to make them feel good about their workplace, then let them decorate it!
4. Purchase vouchers
You could say it's an essential motivational tool, which is why it's often not even thought about in companies anymore. Yet consider that some of our employees find it worthwhile to be able to spend more than their own money on a restaurant, a bookshop or a supermarket. We have so many options, and people like it that way. Simple but great!
5. Food, drink and other goodies
Of course, coffee and bottled water are free, but you can only take a soft drink out of the fridge if you have been rewarded with it after some help. Everyone likes to eat and drink. A small motivational element, but a little sweet or a well-assembled fruit bowl can brighten up the day. Shared meals and named activities are a great way to bring the team together!
Designate one day a month and always have a different department host the others in the office! Sooner or later they'll be competing to see who can give their colleagues a better meal!
6. Spend time with them!
Do you know how much your employees crave a little managerial attention? Give them what they want! Organise occasional lunches with them, or organise a breakfast meeting. You don't always have to get everyone involved, just give 1 or 1 person the opportunity. The opportunity to spend time with the leaders.
7. Company books, equipment that can be borrowed
If the company has its own toolkit of books, DIY tools, or even an ENC device that can be used in Croatia, it's great if employees can borrow it. You have to find the right tools, but it's great if you can give that kind of support.
8. Learn, learn, learn
The belief in "life long learning" is in everyone, some more strongly than others, some less. Let's make room for learning. Subscribe to online courses or give people the opportunity to learn a language. Take your staff on courses. I'm sure everyone will find an opportunity that suits them.
And we can even take this further in the direction of a professional consultation or coaching. We can put the finance manager in touch with an expert who can help him in his work: show him new directions, new opportunities.
9. Donation, supporting a cause
Some people are not motivated at all by the above: they simply look elsewhere and don't want to give themselves extra, they want to help others. Such people need to be assessed and support a worthwhile organisation, a foundation, a sick child or just a good cause in their name. If we support what is important to them, we have won the heart of our employee!
10. The joy of sport and movement
Get your staff moving! We spend the majority of our time in the office, so make room for them to get out of their chairs in the office and do something active instead of brewing their third or fourth cup of coffee. It's also vital for their health that the company supports their efforts. Everyone's preferred form of exercise is different, whether it's yoga, a Crossfit group workout or a game of pairs squash.
11. Days off work spent together
Spend 1 day a month or even 1 day a year together without work. In our case, it's a Fedex day, which is not just a "working day", as the team spends not 8, but 3×8, or 24 hours together. On this day, we will implement 3 of the ideas we have come up with in advance. The aim is to have a productive product, innovation or software by the end of the 24 hours. It's an exciting day because the team is together having fun, ordering pizza, filing off programs, but still productively creating a beta version product. These days are able to break the team out of their daily routine, reinvigorate their creativity, get to know the team a little. It's effective, believe me. Try it!
12. Home office
Nowadays, working from home is an increasingly common, almost expected, option. But it can also be a motivational tool. Not all workplaces can afford unlimited homeoffice opportunities, so why not a reward that is not for everyone?
13. Extra programme
Cooking course? Wine or beer tasting? Maybe trying a new cool restaurant? Wow, you could do it all. How your co-workers would love that. They can go as a team, or with their partner, the point is to relax, all for your benefit!
14. Entrance to an exhibition, concert, cinema, festival
Back Street Boys in Budapest Park? New Star Wars movie premiere screening? A day at the Sziget festival? If your company is located in Szeged, Nagykanizsa, anywhere in the country, if you can provide the framework for such a getaway, your employees will be happy to travel up to Budapest. Go together, it will be fun!
15. Free time available for purchase
Time is the most expensive factor, yet one of the most popular. We have 2 ways to "buy" time at Beeward: we can buy -2 hours, i.e. if we have reached the required point and agreed with the management, we can go home 2 hours early on a desired day. The other time-keeper reward is the day off! Younger people know what it's like when you don't have a family, you finally have money, but hardly any time off. That's when this little bonus comes in handy, which is of course very expensive, you have to save for months, but then you can earn it and increase the small amount of time off. It's a great feeling. Of course, it can also be expensive for the company. These are worth thinking about, and putting the options on Saturday working days, for example.
+1. Gambling effect
Everyone loves the game, even if it's down to luck. Whether it's a bag of tricks or a spinning wheel of fortune, let's give them a chance to enjoy themselves. Whatever method is used, the aim is to leave it up to the recipient's luck to decide what reward he or she will receive. This could be a materially created bag of trinkets or a wheel of fortune that can be spun on a Beeward. Would you test your luck?
What is the next step?
These options should always be worked with. We need to assess who, what motivates them, how to introduce them, why they are given, how often they are given to colleagues. These are raw ideas that need to be thought through and developed.
At Beeward, we are constantly testing reward opportunities to assess who is motivated and what motivates them, so that we can get closer to our employees. It's interesting to see the results, which are very useful, especially because the rewards are not given by managers, but are collected by employees from points given to each other. So we not only get information about motivational rewards, but also about the company relationships and interactions that are formed between employees.
In Beeward, the registration Following instant access to a central rewards repository, where you'll find the most popular and best-selling motivational rewards. You can not only check them out, but also use them immediately with your own team - so you don't have to invent a reward system from scratch.
And how do you motivate your staff?
