What is one best practice when it comes to employee retention bonuses?
To help business owners learn best practices for employee retention bonuses, we asked project managers and HR experts for their best practices when giving out bonuses. From ensuring the bonus is perceived as a reward to involving all team managers, here are several tips that may help you learn the best ways to retain employees through bonuses.
Here are 7 Employee Retention Bonus Best Practices:
- Ensure It is a Reward and Not a Chain
- Reward Your Employees on Holidays
- Tie Retention Bonuses to Specific Goals
- Make Wellness Packages a Part of Your Bonus Strategy
- Make the Employee Retention Bonuses All-inclusive
- Taking a Look at the Industry and Competition
- Involve Team Managers
Ensure It is a Reward and Not a Chain
Although retention bonuses are a great way to account for the value (and cost) of the internal know-how in the compensation package, it is best to ensure they motivate them to stay rather than discourage them from leaving. Although the difference might be subtle, the impact should not be ignored. An employee with the same package treating the retention bonus as a friendly gesture of recognition acts differently than a person who would have rejected the offer without it. Putting effort into the correct positioning of this incentive can have a remarkable impact on the morale and self-recognition of the employees.
Michael Sena, SENACEA
Reward Your Employees on Holidays
Rewarding your employees for their work is always a good idea. Giving bonuses around the holidays especially is expected. Many employees feel they are being left out or slighted if they don’t receive a monetary incentive around that time of the year. Never hesitate to show your employees how much you appreciate them during the business day. Making that effort can go a long way.
Bill Glaser, Outstanding Foods
Tie Retention Bonuses to Specific Goals
Employers should tie retention bonuses to specific goals that employees are expected to achieve. For example, an employer might agree to pay a retention bonus if an employee meets certain sales targets or remains with the company for a certain period of time.
Matthew Ramirez, Rephrase
Make Wellness Packages a Part of Your Bonus Strategy
When a company goes beyond the usual to let employees know that they are cared for, they feel even more valued. Wellness offerings are a great way to do this. Apart from adding value to the retention strategy, there are other benefits too. For one, wellness packages result in a happy and balanced employee, which further results in a positive work environment. And such an environment is in itself a perk for employees to stay with the company.
Azmaira Maker, Ph.D., Aspiring Families
Make the Employee Retention Bonuses All-inclusive
When deciding on the ideal retention package to help you keep the best talent available to you, it is important to consider your company size and what it means to give an essential employee the best experience at your organization. When you identify that all your team members are essential, this allows you to develop a non-biased retention bonuses system that helps to enhance company loyalty. It is worth noting that employee retention bonuses need to exist, be motivating and fair even when the company is handling any critical business projects.
Ryan Yount, Luckluckgo
Take a Look at the Industry and Competition
Every industry has a different set of norms when it comes to remunerations and hikes, so even in the case of employee retention bonuses, it helps to take a look around and gain insights from industry trends. Moreover, a look outside also enables you to gather the latest information on what your competitors offer as bonuses. And to keep an employee from jumping ship, a company would do well to match these amounts for its own set of employees.
Eva Taylor, WP Buffs
Involve Team Managers
A team manager is almost always the best person at a workplace to let you in on the finer details related to an employee. Irrespective of what the tangible employee performance reports and reviews on your desk say, a manager can always add more value to what you’ve learned. And when it comes to deciding on employee retention bonuses, every detail matters so that the final decisions are not just satisfactory but also impactful.
Larissa Pickens, Everfumed
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