Back to blog 03/02/2021

The Long-Term Impact of Employee Recognition & Incentives Program

Contributed by Robert Stern, National Sales Executive

Essentially, an incentive program enables businesses to accomplish their objectives by rewarding employees who are accountable for achieving those goals. A well-designed and balanced incentive program, however, can also facilitate employee engagement, productivity, as well as employee retention. In view of the positive impact on employees, incentives are offered at all organizational levels but for an industry like facilities maintenance, it is even more important for frontline janitorial and maintenance crew to be recognized for their performance and success at customer facilities.

While incentives are critical for increasing employee engagement for facilities maintenance staff, it is important to recognize the value and effect of both monetary and non-monetary incentives. Some facilities maintenance service providers focus only on monetary rewards that are given only to high achievers or on the occasion of a special accomplishment only. As a consequence, a greater part of the hardworking workforce remains unrecognized for their meaningful contribution on a regular basis. On the contrary, a company with an equitable and inclusive approach for incentivizing the janitorial and maintenance frontliners includes monetary as well as non-monetary incentives to reward actions that enhance an employee’s performance while adding value for the company and its customer.  A balanced incentives strategy has long-term benefits for the business and its workforce:

Employee Growth: While some companies set high benchmarks for recognizing and incentivizing employee performance, others sometimes make the mistake of providing an incentive on average performance or routine tasks. An incentive plan should preferably reward reasonably high performers and ultimately enable them to utilize opportunities of career growth and development in the company.

Continuous Improvement: The implementation of various types of incentive plans directly impact employee performance, motivating them to continually improve their work quality and standards. When an incentive program has clearly defined goals, it streamlines the process of recognizing employee efforts and selecting the most appropriate incentive for performance improvement.

Employee Morale – Employee performance is not solely driven by the monetary benefits of an incentive program. In fact, an incentive program is considered important to improve employee morale. Employees feel motivated not only to perform better for the reward, but also because they realize that their efforts are being duly acknowledged and that the company respects and appreciates their efforts.

The primary aim of an employee incentive program is to be beneficial for both, the employees and the facilities maintenance company they work for. Diversified Maintenance recognizes its star employees for different types of achievements and rewards them through different types of financial and non-monetary incentives, some of which include:

BRAVO AWARD – Certificate and monetary reward for demonstrating integrity, resourcefulness, and dependability.

ABOVE & BEYOND – Certificate for supervisor’s recognition of extra effort to satisfy a client.

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH OR QUARTER – A monetary reward as well as employee name in the company newsletter.

To learn more about employee performance recognition and incentive program, send me a note at: Robert Stern mrstern@diversifiedm.com.