Keeping employees motivated in the credit crunch

Friday, 08 July 2011 04:35

The credit crunch of the last few years may have led to a feeling of low morale in your workplace but there is a way you can help – by planning some employee schemes that reward the job your staff do.

Indeed, motivating employees is even more important during times of austerity than it is when your company is on the up.

Making sure that your team feels valued and that what they do is acknowledged will mean that they are happy to put in the effort that helps build and strengthen the business.

However, by not offering anything positive – particularly if you are also having to carry out cost-cutting measures such as redundancy – your employees may begin to lose their dedication to the firm and start to worry that their position is in jeopardy.

This may even result in them starting to consider looking for a new job where they will feel more secure – which could prove both costly and time-consuming for you if you are left needing to find replacements.

In addition, it could mean that you lose some of your top talent – when simply taking the time to motivate and reward may have avoided this.

Employee retention is so important, particularly during an economic downturn when you want to know that you have all the very best people working for you to help pull your business out of the slump and put it on a firm path to future growth.

So, why not thank them for this effort by taking the time to acknowledge what they are doing?

You could provide all of your employees with a gift token to spend at their favourite high street store to show that you know they have been working hard.

Alternatively, you could draw up a list of the targets you most want to see achieved or the behaviour that you believe is a real attribute to the job and hand out prizes based on this criteria – making sure that no single department is ever overlooked.

During the credit clampdown of recent years, people's expendable income has felt squeezed and as a result individuals may be less likely to go out and treat themselves to something they consider frivolous.

But this is where you can step in – by rewarding employees with gift tokens, they can go and buy themselves something special, even if they don't need it at all.

This is sure to put a smile on their face and will mean that you have an upbeat workforce that is able to look positively towards the future.

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