You’re definitely not on a beach reading this right now, and you might be reading it to procrastinate on that project you need to get to.
That’s OK—we still appreciate the read.
We’re deep into the summer months, which means that motivation is less geared toward meeting that deadline and more toward soaking up the sun outside. Unfortunately, we can’t all negotiate summer hours or take 4 day weekends, as much as we’d love to.
You know the reality – you still need to meet your numbers, even though you may find your coffee breaks (i.e. daydreams) lasting a little longer than usual. So, how do you combat this drop in motivation? As the performance incentive experts, we’ve compiled a few useful and fun ways to help your employees avoid any summer slump.
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Around the Office
You don’t work with a bunch of robots. Humans like to have fun! Summer activities don’t only have to happen while away from work. Let your people have a good time in the office by hosting office events. One of our favorites is the Lunch & Learn. During this event, the entire office can meet outside or in a nice air conditioned room for lunch while learning some history about the company or valuable professional development topics from a member of the management team. You’d be surprised what some people don’t know about the place where they work, or have never received professional development training!
Events like these are a good way to quickly satisfy those summer time urges. Giving people an excuse to get outside of the office while also teaching them something that can promote ideas and lead to more creative solutions. In other words, a little bit of sun and workforce investment can go a long way.
How about a little friendly competition? Stimulate the more competitive office dwellers with a corn hole tournament or a baby picture guessing contest. Or, if you’re more goal-oriented, you can make completing work tasks the objective. Whatever your competition, make sure you have a reward for the winner, even if it’s as small as a $10 gift card or an extra “dress-down day.” After all, studies have shown that even small rewards can have a big impact on motivation.
You can loop in the summer theme is by rewarding with summer perks. If you need some inspiration on how to do that, take a look at some ideas here. If you’ve already got a reward program in place, you could reward them with points, or experiences outside of the office, or even a travel reward.
Outside of the Office
Travel can often revitalize an unmotivated worker. They could be dreaming of basking in the sun somewhere instead of struggling to think up innovative ways to get that project done. So, instead of trying to force them to buckle down, try encouraging them to use their accumulated (and needed) vacation days and return refreshed.
You can play into the contest arena here as well. Instead of simply encouraging a vacation, you can send them on one! There are plenty of one-offs that you can use as the reward for a job well-done. Places such as Expedia offer flight, hotel, and car booking discounts for one-time purchases.
In fact, HMI Performance Incentives has created our Just for You travel and entertainment packages for this exact reason.
Beyond vacations, what better way to satisfy the urge to be outside than to hold an event outside? Retreats and events away from work can bring out good summer feelings in your workers. Renting a few picnic tables and grills at a nearby park and including some fun team-building activities is a great, cheap example of how you can reinvigorate your workforce during the dog days of summer. There are also lots of great off-site team-building activities like ropes courses, canoeing/kayaking, beach volleyball or a baseball game – all of them encourage comradery, fun and building experiences together.
Make sure these types of events are off site, though, so people can feel comfortable turning their brain off of “office” mode. Even if it’s hosted in your backyard, a cookout during one work day can give people the excuse they need to relax for a bit then return motivated to do their job.
Whatever you choose, motivating performance through the summer can benefit your workforce and your company goals.
Interested in finding out more about motivating your performers? Reach out to HMI at info@hmiaward.com or call us at 888.220.4780.
Sources:
https://hbr.org/2016/06/even-tiny-rewards-can-motivate-people-to-go-the-extra-mile
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-americans-should-take-their-vacation-days-2015-6
