What bonuses to offer to your employees
Employees are the most important asset of a business and you need to know how to keep them satisfied on the job and loyal to the company. A lot of this is about the bonuses that the company can offer beyond the paycheck and the office perks.
Within that there’s a lot to choose from and the company should have in mind at least a few different financial bonuses and incentives that they use to reward the best and most loyal employees. it’s also important that the employees are aware of these and how to get them.
Profit sharing
Profit sharing is probably the best way to reward your employees but it’s not the most common one, at least not yet. It is as it sounds, the company leaves a side a share of its profits and splits them amongst the workers based on their position and time spent with the business.
This means that the employees will get more bonuses when the company is doing better which is an additional incentive and it gives the employees a sense of ownership over their work and success.
Spot bonus award
On the other end of the spectrum there’s this quite simple bonus when the employee is awarded on the spot for a particular thing they did well or after a long and difficult day at work. Those are usually smaller amounts and they are usually paid right away or with the next pay check.
Even though these bonuses may seem random to the employee, they shouldn’t be when it comes to the company itself. There should be rules and regulations put in place that determine who can award these and on what grounds.
Sign in Bonuses
These are the bonuses that you award when you sign in a new employee. It’s an important tool for the HR department because it shows that you care about the employee and are willing to work to get them on the team. It also covers the costs of moving to a new job and often a new city.
Sign in bonuses can be secret but they don’t have to be. Some businesses put that into their contracts since that allows them not to pay all acquisitions the same, since not all employees are as easy to get on board.
Task and milestones bonuses
Sometimes a business day to day work needs to be divided into long term tasks and sometimes there are additional tasks that take you away from your ordinary day’s work. When this is the case task and milestone bonuses can be used to motivate the employees and to help you streamline a particular project.
These should be fixed and the same for all employees and paid in the same way for everyone meaning that you make the payment when the milestone is actually completed and when its success can be verified. Bonuses such as these vary in size based on the size of the project.
Retention bonuses
Retention bonuses are there to keep the employees on in times of trouble. There could be many reasons to use them. The most common and least problematic reason for these bonuses is due to the merger of a company or some change in its legal status that may mean having to stop the work for a while.
In other cases, these are handed out when you need to calm the employees in regards to the future of the company. This can happen due to recession and similar unexpected problems. They are mostly set to be a percentage of the salary.
Holiday bonus
In the end, there are holiday bonuses that are provided on the common holidays to cover the additional expenses and to celebrate. It’s important for the sake of office relationships to keep this bonus simple. Make sure to cover all the holidays celebrated in your company or to provide bonuses at a certain time regardless of which holiday is celebrated.
It’s also important for this bonus to be the same for everyone in terms of how much they’ll get or in terms of how their bonus is calculated.
Conclusion
One of the incentives you can give to your employees to help them stay with the company and stay loyal to it in difficult times are the bonuses added to their salaries. These are sometimes, related to their salaries in terms of the amount that they can get, but sometimes they are just cash bonuses not related to their ordinary income.
The bonuses can be given based on the completed task or a milestone or they can be an annual tradition or a way to get the employee to switch jobs or stay with you when things are tough.
