Are incentives only about rewards when you’ve done a good job?

Or can you use them to inspire your team to go a little further, be more creative and discover their full potential?

While special incentives can be a great treat when you’ve performed brilliantly, we don’t think they should be reserved just for rewards! Having something exciting and interesting to look forward to can be a really great way to inspire that extra dose of confidence – and might be just the thing you need if you’re finding performance levels flagging a little!

So without further ado, here are 4 of our favourite incentives to boost your team’s spirits – and show them what they’re really capable of.

1.    Give smaller but regular incentives rather than occasional ones

Saving up your incentives programmes for when things get really tough can be a bit of a waste – why wait until your team gets really uninspired before offering a way to help them out of their funk?

Instead, it can be really helpful to have small but frequent incentives on offer on a weekly – or even daily basis. These don’t have to be major investments, but something that people will enjoy and appreciate – and will encourage a little extra performance effort every day.

2.    Involve everyone

Even if you’re trying to boost the performance of a few key individuals, you’re much more likely to be successful if you involve everyone, instead of singling people out.

After all, whatever their role – it’s ultimately part of a team effort, so why not involve the whole team in the incentive? Getting involved in a team building activity – whether it’s a challenging physical task or a problem solving puzzle, will get everyone pitching in as a team.

And did you know that team incentives can actually boost performance by 44 percent? That should definitely motivate you!

3.    Recognise positive performance

Performance levels might be flagging a little overall now, but that’s not always the case. Try to recognise when people are impressing you with their performance levels – and acknowledge it directly.

A verbal chat to praise them directly, or an in-house announcement made by email can be a small but impactful way of showing people their efforts are recognised, and encourage them to continue.

4.    Get people engaged

Sometimes performance levels can get a little droopy when people start to feel disconnected or lacking engagement with what they’re doing. But giving an incentive provides them with a direct goal to work towards.

This doesn’t just give people something to look forward to, but will actually boost their motivation too! It’s even better when they’re given an incentivising task that encourages people to think more creatively – breaking away from the monotony of everyday activities and giving people the opportunity to really refresh their inventive side.

So will you be offering incentives to encourage more performance? What are your favourite ways of giving your team an incentive to work towards? And what kind of benefits have you seen from them? We’d love to know!