Employee Benefits

[legal girl]

I work for a small company where we have no staff benefits. Morale among staff is very low and people feel there is no incentive to work hard or meet targets. How do I broach the subject at my appraisal without sounding like a moaning minnie? I get the feeling the management will just say we're lucky to have a job at all!

[jackthehat]

I get the feeling a lot of people here will say the same.

It would be great to have benefits and incentives at work, but I think you'll all have to content yourselves with contents of your wage-packets.

[woofgang]

the incentive to work hard and meet targets is that you get to keep your job!!
If you want to suggest it why don't you go in with a plan?
It should be cheap or free, have demonstrable benefits, make folk smile and "the management" shouldn't have to do the work to make it work.

[redcrx]

there is no incentive to work hard or meet targets
surely the biggest incentive is being employed at the end of the month. What sort of incentives are you wanting and what is stopping the staff arranging things to cheer themselves up? Throw a staff party or something!

[milly143]

I don't really want to sound like a b1tch but your employers owe you nothing other than the wage you get to do a job which you should be doing in return for that money. We all get deflated in our jobs but if you can only do your job properly if there are perks then you need to find a new job.

[annie0000]

You could present it in your appraisal in a positive way. You can say that you have observed that there is a moral problem in the team and that whilst you understand that in the current economic climate there is maybe little that can be done financially, but that there may be an opportunity to do some low cost or no cost things that would help. If you also go armed with ideas, or are prepared to get people together to have a brain storm, then you look proactive rather than a moanin minnie.

[annie0000]

Sometimes the best way to appreciate what you have is to help others in a worse position. Maybe the company would allow a few people to have an hour or so out of the work place to volunteer for something in your local community.

[Eve]

Sorry but I feel the same as the others, the incentive to work hard and meet targets should be keeping your job when so many people have lost theirs or are facing losing their jobs, struggling to get buy on lower paid jobs or where partners have lost jobs...I think morale might be more of an issue there!

Ask yourself the question, why should your employer give you additional benefits and incentives for doing the same job they currently pay you to do, especially when I'm sure there are countless people who would give anything to have a job, better paid or at all, and income?

Unless you work in some kind of sales environment, excel at your job, are making a lot of money for the firm or have a highly prized skill and it would be a significant detriment to them if you left etc... you may be on thin ground.

If you have a good work ethic and morale (help get it up yourself as per some of the suggestions above), do your job well regardless of incentives then maybe, in the future when times are better, you might get some of the rewards through earning it.

[Maydup]

Another way of looking at it is to think about cost free incentives. Maybe you could suggest a charity event for example where you are all sponsored to wear fancy dress, might cheer people up. Or where you organise an out of work activity like a visit to a show or the races which people club in for over the course of a few weeks.

We do a lucky number lottery. Everyone buys a number for £1 and when the bonus ball comes up on the lottery the holder of that number takes all. Its worth trying to think ofa few things like this that the managemnet could support without needing to cost lots of money.