The Guide to Employee Incentives

Your Infographic Guide to Employee Incentives
Are you maximizing the impact of your incentive program?

The type of employee incentive has an impact on work performance. Money is two times more effective at increasing employee performance than gifts and vacations (27% versus 13%).

Money used as an employee incentive increases employee performance by 27%.
Gifts and vacations used as an employee incentive increases employee performance by 13%.
Competitive incentive programs are slightly more effective at increasing performance than non-competitive programs:

Competitive incentives increase employee performance by 27%.
Non-competitive incentives increase employee performance by 22%.
Long-term incentive programs have a larger effect on employee performance than short-term incentive programs:

Short-term incentive programs increase employee performance by 20%.
Intermediate incentive programs increase performance by 29%.
Long-term programs increase performance by 44%.
Team-based incentive programs have a significantly larger effect on employee performance than individual-based incentive programs:

Individual-based incentive programs increase employee performance by 19%.
Team-based programs increase performance by 48%.
Incentives also have an impact on the quantity and quality of work performance:

They can increase the quantity of work performance by 21%.
And increase performance quality by 26%.
Incentives can play an important role in motivating employees. Incentives have less of an impact on motivating employees to start a new task (15%) than they do on motivating the employee to persist at a task (27%) once they start it or on motivating them to work smarter (26%).

15 Ways to Maximize the Effect of Incentives
Tie incentives to specific results.

Base incentive determinations on objective performance data.
Make pay-for-performance an integral part of the company’s strategy.
Match the specific incentive to the employee.
Make monetary incentives the cornerstone of your program.
Pay cash bonuses in a lump sum to maximize their effect.
Only use long-term incentive programs.
Include competitive and noncompetitive incentive programs.
Establish team-based incentive programs.
Reward teamwork and cooperation.
Recognize small and large accomplishments.
Include praise, recognition and non-cash incentives.
Set reasonable performance standards for incentives.
Involve all employees in the development, implementation and revision of
incentive programs.
Encourage communication between employees and management about incentives.