Establishing a staff reward scheme is a tried and tested method of improving employee engagement.

If the scheme is well researched and planned, even a small budget can create an effective incentive scheme, with a good return on investment.

Here are 10 tips for setting up an incentive and motivation scheme within your company:

1. Who are you incentivising?

Think about who you are trying to incentivise and what you want them to achieve?

2. What are your business targets?

For the scheme to have impact on your bottom line, it is essential that the targets and objectives of your colleagues are linked to tangible business targets.

3. Be clear about what and how they will be rewarded?

It’s important that your colleagues are clear about what they need to do to reach their targets, what they are being measured on and what they will receive once they’ve met their goals.

4. Achievable targets?

Targets set for colleagues should stretch them and be challenging but must be achievable or you run the risk of de-motivating teams.

5. What’s your budget?

Work out what budget you have available for running the scheme. Make sure that you have the resources to run and measure the scheme.

6. Choose the right reward/incentive

Don’t offer cash incentives that can be confused with bonuses and salary and often get swallowed up in everyday expenditure. Gift Cards, experience vouchers and bespoke gifts are the best incentives as they offer CHOICE. Most importantly, remember one size most definitely doesn’t fit all – your reward must be valued by all colleagues.

7. Get buy in from your employees

When you implement the scheme, make sure that you engage your staff to ensure that they take ownership of the scheme from the beginning. It is much more likely to be successful if your colleagues feel involved from the start.

8. Communicate, communicate, communicate

There is no point in creating a first class incentive scheme and then failing to tell anyone about it. These days there are a number of communication methods that can be employed to maximise colleague engagement with a scheme. Text messages, emails, newsletters, company intranet and websites are just a small selection of the channels that can help spread the word.

9. Record, measure and report

There is little point in setting up a scheme and then ignoring it until the end of the year. Monitoring and recording progress is beneficial for everyone.

10. Keep updating

Once an incentive scheme is in place, it is important that it is reviewed regularly and updated, so that there are fresh targets and incentives for staff.

Return on investment

Implementing a reward scheme using Gift Cards and Vouchers does not have to cost a fortune. It can be created on a relatively small budget but it does require careful planning.

Return on investment should be visible and measurable fairly quickly as long as the points above have been considered. In the long term the scheme should create a highly engaged and motivated workforce, which is extremely vital to the success of any business.

For more information about incentivising and motivating using Gift Cards and setting up a reward scheme for your business contact visit www.sainsburysbusinessdirect.co.uk