WHAT’S AHEAD
FOR REWARDS
AND MOTIVATION
IN 2018?
Trend: Health and wellbeing
moves front and centre
New research from global employee
engagement company Reward Gateway
has found that wellbeing, recognition, pay
and benefits will be the top employee
engagement priorities for HR professionals
in 2018.
The research, which surveyed 565 HR
professionals found that companies are
looking to invest heavily in both wellbeing
and recognition. Two areas that UK
employees have said are crucial to them,
but don’t feel as though their employers
are adequately providing. Reward Gateway
also discovered an astounding 22 million
British workers, or 7 in 10 employees (71%),
have felt stress or financial strain in the
last five years. Despite these numbers,
the same research also found that a third
of respondents said that their company
currently offers no wellbeing programmes.
However, when 59% of employees surveyed
would rather work for a business with a
culture where they received recognition,
over a higher salary job – this could be the
year to put wellbeing front and centre.
Trend: Agile working
With The Agile Revolution at #1 in the
business read charts on Kindle, it’s time to
get ready for a new way of working. HBR
suggests that Agile espouses collaboration,
customer centricity, team-based culture,
and continuous improvement. For HR and
incentives this could mean new business
practices. Take a look at some of the great
blogs around Agile working for inspiration
on new ideas like cadenced meetings,
retrospectives and working in cycles.
06 | www.incentiveandmotivation.com
It could be a huge change. According to
McKinsey, when aiming for a new agile
approach, global bank ING took away teams
and instead made 350 nine-person “squads”
in 13 tribes – and made every employee
at its headquarters (nearly 3,500 people)
re-interview for their job. Staggeringly, 40%
of these people ended up in new positions
or parted ways with the company. They
worked on encouraging the sales force and
branch network to embrace agility through
daily team stand-ups and other tactics.
Léon Benjamin, who has worked with
companies like British Airways, Microsoft
& BT argues “Agile working is about the
capacity to change before the case for
change becomes desperately obvious. If
you’re not fast, you’ll be last.”
Trend: Employee Shares
For the smaller company looking to recruit,
retain and incentivise key employees,
arrangements which allow for the
discretionary grant of options, or allotment
of shares could be worth considering in
2018. Share plans can offer significant tax
benefits for businesses and employees.
With careful structuring, the returns to
employees can be taxed at between 0%-
20% and with the benefit of corporation tax
relief for the business.
Even with no likelihood of a sale or other
form of an exit event, employee shares can
still provide value to employees. Internal
markets can be created to create liquidity
in private company shares and enable
employees to realise part of the increase
in value from their shares. Additionally,
dividends (with their small and reducing
tax-free annual allowance) can give the
employees an opportunity to share in the
profits of the business.
Share incentives can be structured to
avoid unwanted shareholder dilution.
One commonly used tool for doing this is
through the use of “growth shares”.
Trend: Work practices
that foster innovation
In a recent study, just over 1 in 5 employees
said that they didn’t believe anyone wanted
to hear their ideas at work and 18% said
that even when they put their ideas forward,
they were rarely implemented.
Worryingly, as many as 16% of workers said
that any new idea would actually be treated
with suspicion and criticism, while 15%
of people believed their business leaders
actively discouraged innovation.
2018 could be the year we really start to
create work practices to encourage new
initiatives. This could mean you have regular
job swaps that foster new perspectives
from different employees, that you develop
cross-functional teams, introduce a new
ideas or “what if?” section to regular
meetings or even have a dedicated area
within the business that will promote
interaction with employees – whether it’s a
relaxing environment or a training area that
inspires new thoughts and approaches.
Trend: Investment in out-of-
office events and experiences
When it comes to events and getting out
of office, 2018 looks set to be the year
we really look at how to innovate. With so
many similar team building and away-day
options available, there can be the risk that
many employees will have ‘been there and
done that’ meaning they don’t fully immerse
themselves in the experience and get the
best out of