Rewarding employees in the workplace is an important part of motivating your workforce. With evidence suggesting that women are rewarded less at work compared to men, it’s especially important to pay attention to how and when you reward your female employees. You should think about the different ways you might reward them for various achievements, from completing projects to hitting milestones or just working particularly hard. There are several ways you might approach rewards, including giving physical gifts, events and outings, or benefits such as time off. When you’re thinking of how to reward women in the workplace, consider these things.
Create Group Rewards That Are Appropriate for All
If you’re rewarding your employees as a group, it’s important to make sure that they’re appropriate for everyone. While many businesses now have strict rules about what is and isn’t appropriate for their business, there are still sometimes cases of events, outings or trips that are meant to be rewards but could range from boring to offensive if all employees aren’t taken into account. Make sure that you plan rewards that work for everyone, and that all employees can enjoy together, no matter their gender or anything else.
Put Thought Into Small Rewards
Not all rewards in the workplace have to be huge. However, if you’re going to offer small tokens of your appreciation, you should put some thought into the things that you give. They will be appreciated more if they’re custom, quality items, rather than cheap and hastily chosen items. Consider something like custom medals – if you visit NameBadgesAustralia.com, you can see what sort of thing you could offer as a reward. When you choose these gifts, you can also consider things like brand awareness and providing something useful that could stay with your employees long after they have left you.
Reward with Responsibility
Another way that you might consider offering rewards to women in the workplace is through giving them more responsibility. However, you need to be careful about this one. While more responsibility at work can be a reward for a job well done, you should make sure that you’re not expecting women to do more than men in order to be rewarded with more responsibility. If greater responsibility is a given for men but something that women are only rewarded with, it doesn’t look good and won’t help women to advance in your workplace.
Consider Time Off and Flexible Working
You might also consider using time off or perhaps remote or flexible working as a reward. An extra day off or flexibility with working hours can benefit anyone, especially those with families, but can be particularly useful for women, as the majority of childcare and other personal obligations can still fall to them. However, if you want to truly move your business forward, you might want to focus on offering these things as part of your general business practices, not just as rewards.
One of the most important things to keep in mind is rewarding all employees equally. It’s important to ensure your female employees aren’t having to work harder to receive the same rewards.
