We know that rewards and recognition can directly affect the performance and wellbeing of your team members – a well thought out reward can boost an individual and motivate them further, while a poorly thought out gift can make an individual feel discouraged and apathetic towards their work; even poor performers in your team can be rewarded through retraining and re-motivation. However, have you considered how your rewards and recognition structure can affect your sales?

A focused team

Companies all over the world conduct studies every year to discover what it is that motivates team members and every year, more and more results come in showing that it it’s the satisfaction of completing the task itself that individuals like – in fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, salary and other monetary rewards are very low down on the list of things that motivate employees.

It’s this kind of focus that drives sales; teams that have their sights set on ‘what’s in it for me’ are the teams that will ultimately fail when it comes to boosting revenue. This is when it becomes important to have a great rewards structure – incentives with off-target intentions will have off-target results, giving your team a focus, but on all the wrong things.

A loyal team

Naturally, having one’s efforts noticed and recognised – both publicly and privately – can be a huge source of motivation and it can even produce an increased respect for you. Someone who feels valued and encouraged within a team will be more loyal to the team and the manager.

To this end, it’s extremely important to spend time recognising and rewarding both individuals and teams. Focusing on individual efforts and achievements while neglecting the team can mean that the team is less motivated to collaborate together and draw upon each other’s strengths. In a similar way, spending too much time focusing on rewarding team achievements can leave individuals feeling disheartened, as though their personal efforts mean nothing, and it ultimately impacts upon their productivity.

A set of achievable goals

Every single team is different – your marketing team is different from your operations team and they are different again from your sales team.  Because of the variety throughout different teams, each team should have different goals and targets. An achievable target for the sales team could be completely out of reach for the operations team.

If your team goals are unachievable, we can safely assume that your team won’t be able to reach them. This means that they get no satisfaction in actually completing the work, nor will they receive any kind of reward or recognition for the effort they did put in, leaving the individuals, as well as the team environment, feeling deflated and unmotivated when it comes to trying again – not a great way to start heading towards boosted sales.

It can be difficult to find the right balance when it comes to rewarding and recognising your team, but it’s fairly clear that a simple rewards structure can be the difference between a happy, motivated team that drives your organisation forward or a deflated, apathetic team who keep the organisation stagnant.

If you want to know how your rewards structure could be helping or hindering your team when it comes to boosting revenue, People Make the Difference can help you to create a structure that really works. We can help you with training workshops, one-on-one coaching and Coach On Call services. To find out more, call us on 0412 333 415 or visit peoplemakethedifference.com.au.