What are your thoughts on employee recognition (entrepreneurial or not) for a company of ~190 employees? Gift cards, recognition in a newsletter, a lunch for over-achieving employees? -@andrealynn
If you have a program of sales incentives already in place ($100,000 in a month gets a trip to Caribbean, etc) then that’s fine. Else, I would not do something like that after the fact because some people might feel bad.
Instead, you want the employees (and really all of the employees) to always feel like there are opportunities to advance in your organization (as opposed to prizes).
Advancement means (depending on how you execute on this) more learning, more money, more opportunities for wealth in the future.
I would sit down with the best employees and ask them specifically what they see their future as. Maybe they eventually want to be entrepreneurs and go out on their own (and that’s fine also!), maybe they want a new title, maybe they want to go with you on biz dev meetings (as long as it doesn’t effect their sales meetings), maybe they want a day off to do charity.
But if they know that you personally care about their personal advancement then they will make you the most money and continue to kill for you. I would also ask them if they know anyone like them that you can hire (and then you get rid of the underperformers). This might also make the best employees feel more like managers. Another possibility is stock options for the best of them. This can be done by putting together a stock option program for everyone but that they earn into it based on past and future sales. (i.e. don’t give out all the options at once).