A New Employee Reward and Recognition Program Essay

In efforts to increase motivation, increase employee job satisfaction, increase communications, and raise the employee retention rate, a rewards and recognition program could be implemented. Being a non-profit organization with no budgetary spending allotted for a rewards and recognition program, makes this project challenging. However, the benefits appear to tremendously outweigh the burdens. Therefore, planning and developing this program will be a both challenging and beneficial. Objectives of Planned Intervention Objective one would be to increase motivation. Employees lack motivation due to not be recognized for all of the hard work, dedication, sacrifice, and fortitude they have performed or given for the organization. Being motivated does not come easy for every person. It is hopeful that the implementation of an employee rewards and recognition program will provide the employees with a common goal in order to receive the recognition; thus, requiring them to be motivated to get the job done. A sizeable change in motivation is hopeful to be around 75-85%, given all employees participate. This will be observable and measurable by the amount of work accomplished as well as how much effort the employee devoted to it. Objective two would be to increase employee job satisfaction. This goal is the purpose for doing this project. Lack of recognition has caused many of the employees to develop negative behaviors and work morale. They feel unappreciated, overworked, insignificant, and ignored. It is hopeful that their feelings will change as a result of an employee rewards and recognition program being implemented. In correlation to the first objective, this objective is suspected to increase employee job satisfaction by 75-85%. Not only will the job satisfaction increase but so will work morale. With employees being happy in their place of employment, improved work morale would be promising. Objective three would be to increase communications. Communication is the key to a successful organization. At this point, there is little to none. What is there is vague and often incomprehensible. Confusion and frustration should minimize due to more systematic employee communications; this being one of the largest obstacles due to the size of the department and the distribution of our locations. Time management should improve due to the reduction of re-doing and/or elimination of the duplication of work done. The employee communication process and procedures will change in order to give a more systematical approach on communication. Objective four would be to raise the employee retention rate. Currently, it is difficult to retain substitute teachers and bus drivers more than any other employee. It is expectant that this rewards and recognition program will inspire these employees to want to stay. It is hopeful that they will be motivated in trying to obtain a permanent position due to this as well. These changes would occur in all four counties (a total of ten locations), as the employee rewards and recognition program is intended to be implemented department wide. This includes four satellite offices/classroom locations as well as six classroom only locations. Strategies to segment the program into quarters are probable. By the end of the first program quarter, a substantial change shall be noticeable. With great anticipation, by the end of the third program quarter at least half will be have made notable growth. Description of Intervention In effort to achieve the objectives stated above, a plan of action is needed. The organization currently has one recognition process which is for years of service. However, there is nothing in the policies and procedures manual outlining this process. Due to the budgetary restrictions, there will be a section added to the policies and procedures manual but rewards will be left to be determined. The new procedure will require some constant creativity and teamwork. Planning strategies to raise money will be a challenge but with some creativity and teamwork, it should be effortless. A few fundraising opportunities that can be done quarterly are as follows. A bake sale! In hopes that employees will join forces and want to initiate this change together, as it will not be handed to them, it will be asked that they donate a baked goods item to the bake sale on a given date. All proceeds will then go into a fun reserved for the employee rewards and recognition program. This could be done monthly or quarterly dependent upon how low the fund is running. A weekend community picnic! This will more than likely be done once a year, as it is a particularly large project and will expect employees to volunteer outside of work. All proceeds again going into the employee rewards and recognition program fund. Blue Jean or Casual Fridays! This would obviously be done on Fridays, every Friday if permissible. Any employee who wants to wear blue jeans or casual clothing will have to pay anywhere from one to two dollars. In correlation, a themed casual day could be implemented as well. Things such as football Friday, where the employee could wear their favorite sports jersey, or during the holidays, they could or dress say in costume on Halloween; of course for a fee.