What are the most effective ways to reward top performers? Do you feel constrained in how you reward top performers because of budget limitations?
While it’s common to consider salary as a key component of rewarding compensation, there are many other factors that motivate and energize your top performers. A foundation of workplace health is essential to attract and retain great people. Salary increases and employee perks are little incentive for people who are in a miserable work environment.
Before you focus on rewards, make sure you have a healthy workplace culture, a compelling mission, and sustainable progress in meeting goals. Best Christian Workplaces’ Employee Engagement Survey provides a baseline measurement of workplace health and action steps to improve your culture.
In addition, rewarding top performers assumes that you have an effective performance management system in place to identify top performance. This includes performance standards, tracking of individual goals, regular conversations about progress on goals, and a formal evaluation process. You cannot reward what you do not measure. You will be positioned to reward performers well when you ensure that your review/check-in process, job descriptions, and goals are set up to measure desired behavior.
Once the foundation of workplace health and performance management is in place, then the consideration of rewarding top performers is an important step toward deeper engagement and flourishing.
In Road to Flourishing, Al Lopus, Co-Founder of Best Christian Workplaces, says, “Rewarding compensation tells an employee, ‘Your work is valuable to this organization; you are valuable to this organization. We value your presence and your contribution.’ That is the essence of respect—the acknowledgment of a person’s worth demonstrated in how they’re treated.”
There are many other meaningful ways to recognize and reward top performers, in addition to their salary and compensation package.
Top performers are not content to stay stagnant. They are itching to learn and be better at their jobs as they grow and develop. Support this interest by providing opportunities for them to stretch through training in new skills or further development in existing competencies. Provide mentoring relationships as a way to develop people.
An investment in training and development is especially motivating for those who are early in their career or mid-career, as it deepens their bond with your organization and underscores their value over the long term. I still remember the first time I was sent to an out-of-town training opportunity and how it made me feel valued by my employer.
Training and development plans should be a core part of your organization’s strategy to grow competencies and value your existing employees. Unfortunately, when budgets are tight, training and development are often the first items to be cut, which is short-sighted.
As you communicate with employees, make sure they understand the difference between development opportunities as a reward for performance and training that is focused on improving the skills of under-performers.
Top employees have demonstrated good judgment and a deep understanding of core values and mission, so give them room to be creative within these parameters. Seek out their input for process improvement. Include them on cross-functional teams that interact with key decision-makers. Giving a top performer room to provide input and shape new initiatives is motivating.
Providing opportunities for influence and visibility demonstrates the value that top performers bring to your organization. Make sure they understand that these opportunities are because of the excellence that they bring to their work. Their participation isn’t just a reward for them, your whole organization benefits from great ideas generated from all levels of the organization.
Your best employees have demonstrated that they are trustworthy, self-motivated, and can accomplish their goals. Reward this competency by giving them opportunities to flex their work situation to match their preferences. They know themselves and their style well enough to have more ownership over their hours, location, and physical environment.
Affirmation and recognition of excellent work is meaningful. This kind of positive feedback is most effective when it is timely and specific—link the affirmation to a specific event or accomplishment. Take the time and effort to frequently offer affirmation. Look for regular opportunities to acknowledge great effort and results.
Know your people so you can tailor the recognition to their preferences. Some people want private recognition that is either written or verbal. Others thrive in the limelight and value public affirmation at a team meeting or event. Consult supervisors when developing reward plans and systems, since they know their people and what would be most meaningful to them.
While Best Christian Workplaces statistically measures many aspects of rewarding compensation, the heart of a ministry is also seen in the open-ended comments in response to the survey. Here’s feedback on the feeling of affirmation by an employee of a flourishing workplace: Everyone truly cares about one another, and everyone feels valued. My boss and co-workers are quick to affirm and build me and others up. There is a sense of appreciation for one another that is encouraging.
Resources
Ministry Partners who use Best Christian Workplaces’ Employee Engagement Survey to assess workplace health and plan action steps to improve employee engagement also have access to specialized resources. In addition to support from experienced consultants, there are toolkits such as Compensation That Rewards which outlines best practices in compensation for organizations committed to working with Best Christian Workplaces to make positive changes on their journey to flourishing.
The following free resources from Best Christian Workplaces provide a great starting place to implement meaningful rewards for top performers:
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