Top 3 Things You Need To Know About Employee Compensation

As an employer, your company is only as buoyant as the motivation levels of your employees. More than your executive ingenuity, you need a competent and adequately motivated team to execute those beautiful ideas swarming your head.

 There is nothing dishonorable about your employee's motivation being significantly connected to their remuneration. Would you blame them? They are not as intrinsically and emotionally attached to the company's vision as you are.

 After all, aren't you the founder of the business? They know when the company blooms, it won't be them the big magazines will be chasing for interviews.

While you can go on zero paychecks for months, the same can't be expected from your employees. They must be proportionately rewarded and appreciated for their input to the project.

 Understanding the types of reward

 Reward and appreciation can be in two forms that both work excellently. One is monetary remuneration, and the other is emotional remuneration. Both are important.

 For the first one, an employee with a healthy paycheck will naturally be fired up for work. But here is the nugget here. It is often not necessarily the enormity of the compensation that keeps the employee motivated. Sometimes, it could be the punctual consistency of the salary.

 Let me demonstrate it. An employee earning $50/hr but suffering irregular in payments (maybe delayed paychecks, reduced payouts) may not be as motivated as that employee earning $20/hr but punctually get his pay when due.

 These two situations are worlds apart if carefully examined. For the employee with bigger pay but suffering irregularities and tardiness in payment, his employer's reliability will be significantly threatened.

 He is paid big, but he isn't sure when. This would handicap his motivation to get on his grind daily. Ultimately, this would lead to burnout, where the winds are sucked off such employees' sails.

 Now, let us bring it down to the employee on the $20/hr pay scale. Given the reliability, assuredness, and predictability of his pay, his confidence in his employer is buoyant. This translates into a torrent of motivation with the employee seeing the need to push himself more.

 This is more particular to the sales industry.

 The reliability and predictability of your monetary reward system are especially crucial in the sales world. The sales rep going on the blazing summer afternoons and freezing winter days is very prone to emotional volatility and sporadic bursts of motivation -- on and off.

 Today, he is all at the grind, crushing it and pulling off incredible figures. Come tomorrow, he is demotivated, dreary, and crawling about his daily routine.

 For sales reps with such a mental profile, the smallest morsel of unreliability on management is sure to tip them over to mediocrity and underperformance. 

 Their motivation levels are very delicate, and the last thing you want is either not paying them punctually or paying them less than contracted.

 Anything less than initially agreed (due to specified parameters of performance) or anything later than when agreed is due is going to significantly damage your integrity, sending the alarm bells ringing, and getting your employees demotivated.

 I would be wrong to say payment defaults can't sometimes be inevitable. But strive as best as you can (even if it means you are going out of your way) to avoid this. And when for any reason, such ugly scenarios can't be avoided, be very transparent and open with your team.

 Such clarity and honesty will appreciably boost your credibility in their perspective, keeping them considerably charged up in the crisis.

 However, trying to shroud the secrecy situation is sure to get them even more suspicious, killing their motivation even faster. Here there are, burned out more quickly than supposed.

The place of emotional reward

 On the other side, emotional remuneration is vital from you, the boss. Empathy is one virtue that shouldn't be missing from your leadership toolbox.

 You can choose to stay up high in your aristocratic perch and be disconnected from your employees (which would inevitably lead to employee burnout) or come down empathetically to connect with the lowest member in your team. 69% of American workers say they work harder when they feel appreciated.

 A simple "thank you" from the boss means a million dollars to some employees. You may not know this, But gratitude, when passed from above (executive) to the downline, can be exponentially stimulating and motivational.

 Gratitude may not always be oral. Sometimes, a small gift can be incredibly incentivizing for your employee. A simple card or journal from the boss is no less than a hard-earned trophy.

 Who doesn't like being appreciated by the boss? Being that boss with a stone for heart, always confined in his ego or self-centeredness, will get your team's motivation slumping in no time.