Employee incentive ideas!

Hey guys!

I need ideas.

I have a big meeting on friday. This is my one chance to speak up and come up with as many ideas as possible. We are trying to figure out how to boost moral, improve team work, encourage our employees, show our gratitude to them in different ways.

Anyone have thoughts on what we can do to make our work place a fun place to be without losing the reality that it is a work place??

We do things like: order pizza for the staff, monthly perfect attendance gifts, year end perfect attendance gift (27"TV)

We want to take it one step further. We'd like to bring everyone together to participate in fun activities.

You guys always have great ideas so.....I am hoping I can count on you once again to help make my ideas 'shine'. I need to sell this to a roomful of management.

I forgot to mention. There are 75 employees. All on different shifts...

What kind of company do you work for Ghys? Is it manufacturing? Just looking at what type of environment you work for.

If it is a manufacturing environment (ie: people on the floor) they need to feel that they are not being treated separately from the front office staff.

Once you give me an idea of your office environment I'll give you some ideas.

Kass, it's an inbound/outbound call centre (alarm dispatching to be precise).

Our goal is to make everyone feel good about working there. Try to break the day shift/night shift/evening shift barriers. And most importantly to make them all feel like they are being treated evenly.

Because of the security aspect, the call centre is completely closed off and no one has access to that part of the building. My office is in the 'front' part where people off the streets have access. As well as my boss and 2 other people. That has always been seen as a separation between 'them' and 'us'. It's a pain at times but, there is nothing we can do. We need someone at the front that people can have access to, which is the 4 of us. Basically, management and administration. And....we have to ensure their safety so...their area is off access to the public.

I actually do alot of fun things for everyone. I post birthdays, give out candy etc...I'm just running out of ideas.

BTW: I get along well with everyone and vice versus so, it makes it easy to do things with and for them.

I'm just running out of ideas.

The meeting that is being held will be basically ideas for 2 different call centres individually PLUS....something that we can maybe organise to bring the two together????

Thanks!

I use to work at a call centre during my university years!!

Let me think what we did. Hmmm..We always had employee of the month. The people who took the most calls, or went above and beyond.

We had monthly staff outings (ie: to local bar, bowling etc). It kept the team's spirits up. Summer BBQ's and parties. We dressed casually every Friday and donated $2 for this privledge to United Way.

We also had monthly raffles. On each of our birthday's we had 'all' of management come to the call centre and they had to sing Happy B-Day! It was hilarious!

I think the big difference came in how each supervisor treated their staff. We had a 'morning' or beginning of shift 'pow-wow' to get us going. Also you should have a suggestion box where people can give ideas on improving the call centre.

Let me sleep on it and I'll get back to you with some more ideas.

Thanks Kassandra!!!!!

I hope you had a GREAT night sleep!!! and that it brought you tons of ideas!

I am starting to prepare.....meeting is tomorrow.

We did the suggestion box a few times. Believe it or not....someone actually tore into it and took the suggestions out.

I know one thing that would make everyone here happy would be some kind of bonus on their birthday....I am going to suggest it but, I doubt that will fly. We all get a Christmas bonus so I think that in itself is great.

I like the BBQ idea...that will probably be a go. I am going to suggest that. We had one a few years ago...nothing last year though.

Thanks and.....keep the ideas coming!!!! Love it!

I work on a helpdesk, and actually I'm the head of our Morale Committee.

Some of the things we have done in the past: trivia contest through e-mail, with prizes. We had a Hawaiian shirt day once. We invited everyone to wear a Hawaiian shirt on a set day, and the boss had a cake decorated in high Hawaiian colors, and some of the employees brought in desserts and snacks. We had a Marti Gras party...I ordered some neato cheap beads from the web, and some plastic cups, and one of the girls here baked a King's cake. We had trivia to earn beads, and the supervisors/managers gave beads out for best call, most annoying caller, best logged ticket, basically made it a party all day, and the person with the most beads at the end of the day won a prize (which I can't remember atm).

In the winter we did a summer party. We made construction paper beach scenes and had a "cookout". Basically we invited everyone to bring in their favorite summer food and we put together a table that everyone could visit and eat. People brought hamburgers in a crockpot, and hotdogs in a crockpot, potato salad, cheese and crackers, and we even got a fruit salad! It was a great time.

We have also planned trips to New York for weekends, and bowling nights. Personally I have found the things that work the best are the in house parties. If you don't have a theme you can just do a food day where people bring in a food item (bought or made) and everyone can enjoy. My people love those . Hope this helps!

Thank you so much Jamie!

Those ideas are great!

Hockey Night!!!! (I plan these at my work!)

Plan group events... it's always nice to meet your co-workers families!

When I worked in a casino, one day a month was Theme Day. For a $1 donation to the Employee Recovery Fund, you could get out of uniform, for the day.

Some of our themes:

Stay in Your Pajamas All Day
Funny Hats
Christmas Colors (December)
Fiesta Day (Mexican theme)
Football Colors (Super Bowl Sunday)
Funny Shoes

Lheeza--Hockey night sounds great. There are tons of hockey fans here!

Cindy.....Love those ideas.

Thanks guys!!!!

I am going to APPEAR like I worked hours coming up with ideas!!!!!!!

In my team, when I was in a call-centre, we would have the team nominate their "stars of the month" - someone who they had seen to have dealt well with a difficult call, someone who had improved loads, someone who always gets the coffees in. It doesn't have to be "call" related. We would have all the nominations read out during our team meeting, and the person with the most votes would win. This could be across the call-centre or within the smaller teams. The "prize" could be a money-thing (voucher or cash), a gift, an extra half-day holiday, or just putting their name in lights.

By having the call-takers nominate people it isn't seen as the management favourites getting all the glory.

I'll try and think of some more - but it was fairly miserable at our call-centre.

The company I work for does a lot of bussiness in employee insentive gifts! Having a BBQ is always fun. I worked for a company that had cook outs every once in a while. It was a really nice gesture! They even had a steak and potatoe day! Everyone brought a side dish or desert. We went out two or three at a time during our lunch break.Games are always fun. We have pie challenges all the time. The guys pick a rival to beat. For example Shawn chooses to challenge Jude. If Shawn beats Judes production, he gets to make a "pie". Usually, it's whipped cream or shaving cream, but we have an old school pie that has cat food, baby food, saurkraut, ect. in it. If Shawn loses he gets it from Jude! The loser has to stand in front of everybody and take his "pie"! Every morning the guys get together and have "atmosphere". It's kinda like a pep rally where we get our morning J.U.I.C.E.. (join us in creating excitement)We promote whats going on in the bussiness. Atmosphere is eveything. You can do such small little things to make people happy. Make your call center a cooler place to be in than the front office. Decorate it with personal items from your employees ie. pictures, plants, ect. We go bowling once a month and have "crew" dinners.

Originally posted by Whisker's mom

We did the suggestion box a few times. Believe it or not....someone actually tore into it and took the suggestions out.

Click to expand...

The same thing happened at my work place...So, management decided to purchase a metal mail box and locked it with a paddle lock. They made a slit in the door of the box (or you could make a slit on the top of it too) so people could slip their suggestions inside. At least this way, no one can get into it...unless they steal the whole box!!