Just rewards: High-value perks for top-performing employees

Businesses can only be successful when they have a high-quality team. But it has never been more challenging for companies to hold onto their top talent.

With the jobs market booming and a huge number of workers considering a career change in part due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the onus is on companies to make working for them as attractive as possible.

In this article, we will take a look at the high-value perks that workers are looking for. Making them a part of your benefits package can help you to retain your top-performing employees more easily.

Connect with Dakota today for more brilliant business support!

Performance-based bonuses

There can be no denying that one of the most effective ways to provide perks to your staff is simply to offer them performance-based bonuses.

The vast majority of people working for your business - no matter where their passion may lie - are doing so because of their annual salary, and many workers will love the opportunity to earn more money by performing well.

It is a great idea to link bonuses to performance. Some companies offer a simple Christmas bonus or a bonus that is based on company profit. While these can be effective, they don’t truly provide staff with a clear incentive to work harder.

If an employee has targets and goals that they can achieve in order to earn more money they are likely to be willing to put in the effort to get there.

Share options

One really effective way to incentivise your top-performing employees is to tie their success to the success of the company. If employees own shares in the business they have an extra reason to want the company to succeed and they are more likely to put in extra effort to make that happen.

There is a UK government scheme that has been specifically set up to make offering shares to employees as easy as possible.

The Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) Share Option Scheme allows ‘certain employees to acquire rights to the acquisition of its shares at a fixed pre-agreed price (known as the ‘exercise’ or ‘strike’ price) at a date in the future’.

Training and education

Of course, it is doing a disservice to staff to say that money is the only thing that motivates them.

Indeed, the majority of workers want to feel like they are doing a job and want to help the company be a success. So, it is interesting to find ways to be able to make an employee’s personal success a part of the company's success.

For example, it can be a great perk to offer job training and other forms of education to members of staff. Getting training on the job helps staff to increase their skills and knowledge.

Not only does this make employees feel like they are progressing in their role and learning new skills that can make them more money in the future, but those skills can also directly help the business.

Private healthcare

It is natural to want your top-performing staff to be healthy and ready to work at all times. This is why another incentive that is growing in popularity is that of private healthcare.

Once again, this is a benefit that not only makes the employee feel more positive about the company, but it also results in healthier staff which benefits the business.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, many employees are suffering greater levels of health anxiety. As such, providing them with private healthcare is a great way to help them to feel safer and more secure.

However, calculating that your business can afford to offer its workforce extra perks and healthcare benefits is an important factor to consider.

Home office budget

It may well be the case that, like many businesses, more of your staff than ever before are working from home.

Remote work is something that was normalised during the pandemic, and it appears to be here to stay, as workers potentially prefer flexible working arrangements and opportunities to avoid a daily commute.

You might consider working from home itself to be a perk of the job, but remember that many staff now simply see this as the ‘new normal’.

Instead, it’s great to think of ways that you can make employees’ home working arrangements as easy as possible. A great way to do this is by providing a budget for home office equipment.

Rather than prescribing home office equipment that an employee has to use, giving them a budget to spend on their own home office will allow them to create their own space that they feel most comfortable working in.

Extra holiday

There can be no doubt that work-life balance is increasingly a factor in the decision of any potential employee. Workers are looking to prioritise enjoying their life as well as working, and one of the most effective ways to do it is to provide your staff with additional holiday days on top of those that are mandated.

Being able to travel more and spend more free time at home is something that many workers are looking for, and it can be easily added.

Find, attract, recruit and train talent to fuel your company's growth

Want to know when and how to hire people into your business? Sign up to Talent Hub for free support with hiring staff, and recommendations on your next steps. Join now

Relevant resources

• Want to retain staff? Get creative with your employee benefits

• The causes of employee burnout (and what to do about it)

• Why it’s wise to create the right office from the start