Productivity Rewards for Production Teams

Andrea

Does anybody currently (or in the past) reward production workers for meeting productivity goals?

We are looking at some type of a rewards system to motivate employees or teams to work harder and make fewer mistakes, to improve yield and profitability.

We have had several issues in the past where employees have made costly mistakes, which are dealt with after the fact, but we'd like to motivate them to basically "care" about their work and worker harder while maintaining quality.

I'm interested in what other folks have done, what has worked and what hasn't, and what pitfalls to watch out for.

I'm leery of doing a non-discretionary bonus that would create an administrative nightmare for recalculating their pay for overtime but am looking for all kinds of creative ideas.

Any thoughts or help is greatly appreciated.

LarryC

I know you're trying to avoid it, but bonus money is really where it's at. We're all in it for the money. Not many would show up for free.

Next best, in my own narrow-minded opinion, would be a gift catalog with a certain dollar amount; or gift cards from local outlets like Target, Best Buy, Olive Garden, etc. At least it would be somehow tied to money.

clackey

We use movie tickets, gift cards to a supermarket or certificates for a family dinner in a restaurant to reward our employees for meeting productivity goals. They love them. Most of them really enjoy the movie tickets.

HRAlabama

My last employer used to provide little parties to the winning team. For example: winning production team would get a pizza party or ice cream party. They had breakfast parties as well with doughnuts/fruit, etc.
Free football tickets, bowling passes, and movie passes were also given out.

HRAlabama

My husband also has safety bingo at their plant. It has a jackpot of a certain dollar amount and the dollar amount goes up every week that nobody calls bingo yet. Not sure of all the rules of their game-but I'm sure your company could set the rules in a way that would benefit you/the employee the most.