Employee rewards and recognition

Employee rewards are systems often set up by a company to reward an employee for individual or group achievement and often comes in the form of bonuses, stock options or cash payout. However, recognition is acknowledging skill, decision-making or individual behaviors exhibited by a particular employee or department. An employer may use rewards such as casual dress day, employee of the month parking or a plaque to recognize work-related actions.

I recommend: US Legal provides an in-depth description of both key terms and explores how each relate together.

Job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is the sense of accomplishment, pride and gratification a worker or employee enjoys pursuant to job performance or workplace culture. It's also a major key in impacting organizational goals, productivity and morale.

I recommend: Visit BNET for a definition of this term.

Non-monetary rewards

Non-monetary rewards are rewards that focus on appreciation and acknowledgement of employee input, contribution to company goals or individual performance without offering money as an incentive. Many workers value and sometimes prefer recognition of their personal work-related behaviors and actions more than cash gifts.

I recommend: Review the concept of non-monetary rewards discussed in an article by Sherry Ryan of the Weyerhaeuser Company, posted on San Diego State University's College of Education website.

Employee motivation

Employee motivation is a system or set of techniques an employer utilizes to encourage employees to meet and exceed individual and company goals and objectives. Workers are not subject to a one-size fits all approach, some are inspired to achieve goals when employers offer more responsibility while others are triggered by monetary rewards. It's vital to find the right types of employee motivation to create job satisfaction for employees.

I recommend: Self-Growth.com provides a more in-depth look at employee motivation and ways to improve how companies approach its workplace staff.

Incentives

An incentive is the use of a reward, perk or gift other than salary to motivate workers to meet or exceed company expectation and goals. Incentive is a method to compensate employees to aim and reach a targeted goal. Many companies use free tuition, an in-house company fitness center, on-site day care facility, trips or vacations to promote company loyalty and encourage a high level of work related effort.

I recommend: PerksandPats.com explores a variety of incentives to compensate and motivate employee productivity and performance.

Performance appraisal

A performance appraisal is a system to measure individual productivity, tasks or goals to calculate merit pay, bonuses or job promotions. There is a distinct difference between compensating an employee for accomplishing work-related characteristics such as punctuality, initiative or work quantity/quality and achievement of team-related, departmental or collective productivity goals.

I recommend: Archer North and Associates provides a performance-related bonus method that gives an insightful example of how to calculate monetary compensation within the context of performance appraisal.

Performance appraisal

A performance appraisal is a system to measure individual productivity, tasks or goals to calculate merit pay, bonuses or job promotions. There is a distinct difference between compensating an employee for accomplishing work-related characteristics such as punctuality, initiative or work quantity/quality and achievement of team-related, departmental or collective productivity goals.

I recommend: Archer North and Associates provides a performance-related bonus method that gives an insightful example of how to calculate monetary compensation within the context of performance appraisal.