Hello,
My staff is dedicated and does a good job. For the most part they are very friendly with each other and involved in each others life. I have always hired based upon personality. It has resulted in a nice friendly atmosphere in our store.
My questions is this: what do you do to reward your employees?
We give a small cash bonus 2x a year currently. I am thinking about once a month having a bowling night for the entire staff with some chinese food. I want to reward their effort, and continue to foster the positive attitude in our business.
I would like feedback on your experiences with his type of relationship. Do any of you do anything such as this? What problems or success have you experienced?
Once a year we do an employee party. We close for the day shift (open again at 5PM) and go rafting or skiing. I pay for it all and it normally costs about $800 or so. We have a blast. The employees seem to be pretty into it as well and always say thanks etc and the upcoming plans are a topic of interest as we come to the end of the season.
What day of the week do you do this? And how do you notify your customers that you’ll be closed (or do you)?
I want to do something like this for my staff. We were thinking of doing two separate events for half the staff each time; that way we wouldn’t have to close the store. But I really want to do something for the the entire staff together.
I don’t think you can go wrong when you take time to do something for your employees. Just as long as you’re taking the time and effort to show your employees that you appreciate them.
In the past I’ve set sales goals, along with a list of requirements for each employee to meet to receive a bonus. For example, drivers must doorhang hang at least 4 hours a week, have no ‘forgets’ and complete the sidework daily. If they did all those things, they’d get the bonus if the store hit it’s sales goal.
I was never able to arrange a gathering like bowling or going to a ball game. But we did small parties in the back after close a few times for Christmas and when we broke the stores sales record.
We have done a staff BBQ at the lake and I bring my boat and we tube and wakeboard etc. Bowling, brought them to West Edmonton mall to the rides and dinner, over to our house for a movie night etc Do whatever you can every little bit makes a difference to them I have found
We do it on a Monday or a Tuesday. We do not tell the customers in advance, we jsut go. At the time of year we do it our day shift sales might be $200-$300. A lot of businesses here close for a while during the mud-season so it is not too suprising to customers.
For our two year anniversary I am planning a trip to Six Flags Great America for my staff. It is going to cost me $600 for admission and I am still looking into the charter bus. It will be a whole day trip. On the bus ride down I am planning on having a trivia game for prizes that I am getting from other local business in exchange for gift cards from us. We will probably grill out in the parking lot (if we can). I think its going to be fun, this will be our first time doing something like this and could become an annual thing.