Cash-less rewards for your workers

By: Max de Leon

Top incentives for employees include empowerment and the pursuit of their dreams

It is true that monetary incentives help bring out the best in employees, and the promise of a considerable cash reward keeps them motivated to always exhibit their peak performance. But what if your cash flow is not able to cover cash bonuses, particularly in difficult economic conditions?

Jun Cabochan, managing director of Pandayan Bookshop, told Entrepreneur Online that there are other ways to give employees a sense of fulfillment and reward them for their efforts other than the dangling of cash gifts.

Cabochan, who is also the executive editor of the People Manager, the monthly magazine of the People Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP), said "feeding their minds" is always an option under the "non-monetary incentives" category.

One of our best non-monetary incentives in Pandayan Bookshop is psychological in nature [which takes the form of] employee empowerment. Empowerment gives the person the opportunity to fulfill his potential. The joy of achievement drives our associates to do their best and try to improve with every new day," he said.

Empowering the employees, however, is not easily done, he quickly added. Fortunately, being in PMAP has allowed Cabochan to be with the cream of the crop in the country's human resource management, and get acquainted with the best practices in keeping employees motivated. As a result, he has managed to develop a five-step process that his company uses to foster employee empowerment.

Cabochan calls it the Five E's of Empowerment. These are:

• Enlist the right people.
• Equip people with the company's values, mission, vision, standards of performance, policies, work procedures, rules, training, and tools necessary to achieve work objectives.
• Elevate people to positions where they can excel.
• Energize people with rewards based on performance measurement.
• Encourage people to do their best and to take risks by nurturing them in a company culture rich with trust and respect for the individual.
  

Peak performance and discretionary effort, Cabochan said, are the results of this process. "At work, we can choose to dish out only the minimum required effort so that we don't get fired or terminated. But if we are motivated, we can volunteer our discretionary effort - the additional effort that represents our best abilities. The company will benefit from the excellent work and the worker will feel the sense of fulfillment of one who has done his or her best," he stressed.

Another non-monetary incentive that entrepreneurs can work on for their employees is the pursuit of specific dreams, said Cabochan. These dreams may not be addressed in the immediate future but it is something that the workers can hope for. It may form part of the mission and vision of the company.

As an example, Cabochan shares, "In Pandayan Bookshop, our dream is for each regular employee to own a house, send his or her children to good schools, eat nutritious food, wear decent clothes, and enjoy leisure activities. So far this year, five Pandayan workers have realized the dream of owning a house and lot," he said.

Cabochan explains why this can be as good as a cash envelop: "A dream for workers motivates them to create performance excellence, knowing that they can have a share in the fruits of their labor."