Production staff motivation
Going with the times, more and more companies are introducing various amenities for their employees. It is not just the coffee machine and sugar in a jar that affect the quality of work. Non-wage supplements are a very important element of employment, regardless of the company’s profile. Is the opportunity for employees of the manufacturing companies to choose benefits themselves?
Basic ways to motivate production employees
Production companies face a number of challenges, overcoming them (or not) has a colossal impact on the results and future of the company. Managers mention a shortage of qualified employees and high salary expectations among common problems.
With a view to maintaining a permanent staff, companies carry out many activities to facilitate the reconciliation of private and professional life, e.g. organize employees transport to work, provide food or at least co-financing for meals in the factory canteen. Increasingly, they run company nurseries or kindergartens and grant additional funds for holidays.
Production employee and fear of the unknown
There is a belief that in manufacturing plants all these amenities should be standard, and employees will not be satisfied with a benefit other than cash. Alternatively, although a lot depends on the individual’s consciousness and life situation, they will be interested in medical care or life insurance.
When choosing benefits for our employees, we must remember that each of them is different. It is difficult to guess what their needs are today or what they will dream about in six months. Despite this, HR people are often afraid that the possibility of independent selection of benefits, from a much wider range of possibilities, will not be a convenience, but a complication for employees. It’s not true! An employee aware of the benefits of the benefits available will be happy to take advantage of them and appreciate the freedom of choice and the fact that he or she can decide for themselves what is best for them. Such choice, in the scope of benefits defined by the employer, is given by cafeterias. And this is the solution more and more often chosen by manufacturing companies.
Benefit cafeterias are an online tool, which is often associated with the fear that employees who do not use a computer every day will be against our proposal or simply will not cope with technology. Indeed, without the proper incentive we will not gain approval for a new tool. By imposing a new idea on employees, without explaining what they gain or how the cafeteria works, we can face resistance and reluctance. It is worth anticipating and preventing such reactions!
Employee involvement helps!
Following Benjamin Franklin’s rule: tell me I will forget. Teach me, maybe I’ll remember. Get me involved, I will learn! The key to success is the appropriate involvement of employees in the process of implementing a new tool with benefits. How to do it? Communication specialists advise that the way should be simple and thoughtful.
The worst possible solution is to leave the employee alone. A good idea will be meetings with employees – information and training – during which they have the opportunity to become familiar with the platform’s operation and the benefits offer as well as the opportunities that they gain. It is worth talking about new benefits in the company on various occasions and in all ways. Employees in production, often without access to official e-mail, do not have to be deprived of access to information! Working with a company that provides us with a tool for managing benefits, we can develop an effective communication plan that also includes posters, leaflets, info kiosks or just meetings with the employees.
Especially for manual workers and those who work in difficult conditions of production facilities on a daily basis, motivation to act and attachment to the employer are of great importance. That is why it is worth thinking about whether the methods we have used so far will be sufficient in subsequent years and how quickly to respond to dynamic changes on the labor market.
