By Bob Meyer

Entrepreneurial businesses can compete with big corporations when it comes to motivating employees.

Incentives, those acknowledgments that tell staffers you value their extra work, are key to unlocking extraordinary efforts. And many can be done through your trade (barter) exchange.

Today in the workplace, the paycheck buys baseline performance…but with incentives you get exceptional effort, because they communicate that you care about and value your people.

To make rewards more effective—no matter how much you spend—you need to be as timely as possible, so the employee knows why he or she received the incentive.

That way you reinforce and encourage employees to keep doing the exceptional work that won them the incentive in the first instance.

You also must match the reward to the individual, making the incentives as personal as possible.

This means getting to know your employees, observing their interests and picking rewards that they will value and appreciate.

The following rewards prove you don’t need to invest that much money to have an impressive, motivating incentive program. And the best part is the expensive ones can often be done on trade.

• Certify your appreciation: When one of your employees keeps their cool during a high-stress project, present them with a $35 gift certificate (scrip) to their favorite store or restaurant, or tickets to a play, concert or sporting event. Whatever fits the employee’s interests.

• Pump up the juice with java: Small details that change the office environment often mean a lot to workers. So let a standout employee, for instance, pick the flavor of coffee for the next week. (It’s surprising how much productivity you’d get by shifting from Folger’s to Starbucks—and how little it actually costs!)

• Treat ‘em with time: Unexpected downtime is a rare treat today. When you’re able to tell employees that if they’re caught up with their work they can go home early on Friday at, say, 3:30PM they’re motivated! And your cost is virtually nothing, as the work is completed.

• Recycle rewards: As we’ve been pointing out, what counts is not what you spend on incentives, but its symbolism. For example, in an office of bowlers you might buy a gaudy bowling trophy from a pawnshop for pennies. When a staffer puts in extra effort, the trophy goes on his or her desk, where it stays until a new winner comes along. (You might be surprised to see workers vying to gain custody of this “badge of honor!”)

• Spring for some office spirit: Too many workplaces are devoid of individuality and filled with plastic plants…an atmosphere that eats away at morale.This is a perfect environment to award top workers with a $50 gift certificate to spruce up their work-space. That’s plenty to buy a print or potted plant (which is considered the employee’s property) and your payoff is a rejuvenated worker.

• Invest sweat equity in good employees: Give a high achiever a free car wash—administered in the company parting lot by the top executive of his choice! (Every employee will turn out to watch!)

Part II, “Motivating Your Employees On Barter” will have an additional 10 tips for you…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Entrepreneurs & Small Business, Best & Brightest Barter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.