Employee Recognition for Hourly Employees: How to Get It Right

According to the most recent data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 55.7% of all US wage earners are paid hourly. That’s 80.5 million employees, and the majority of the workforce.

Keeping engagement high among hourly workers is a unique challenge, but it’s just as important as salaried employee engagement. Hourly employees have needs and preferences that are distinct from your salaried workers, so it’s important to get employee feedback and understand what matters to them so you can engage and motivate them the right way.

Below, we’ll share our top six ways to keep hourly workers happy, and explore why employee recognition is one of the best ways to improve engagement and motivation. Read on to learn ways to make your staff content. Manage your workforce better with BambooHR.

Using Employee Recognition to Keep Hourly Staff Engaged

Recognition and employee rewards programs can motivate and engage your hourly employees. This strategy is an excellent way to extend your company culture to these employees, especially if they aren’t in the office full-time.

Instead of focusing exclusively on performance metrics (which are also important to recognize), you can bring your organization’s values into employee rewards programs. Whether you opt for physical gifts, events, extra PTO, or something else entirely, working toward meaningful recognition helps you build an engaged team.

It’s Not Just About Employee Recognition

While we all want and deserve praise for a job well done, it’s also important to consider that hourly employees have needs and concerns distinct from salaried employees, and your organization should find solutions that fit accordingly.

First, focus on identifying and meeting the most basic needs of your employees, like compensation, benefits, and resources. Then, you can begin building up motivators like development opportunities. Building a solid foundation will reduce job dissatisfaction and disengagement while providing motivators will boost engagement, performance, and loyalty.

Provide Accurate Compensation

The core of any job for any employee is fair and accurate compensation. They need to pay the bills, right? But with an hourly workforce, it can be difficult to keep an accurate log of how many hours each employee worked.

Inaccurate time tracking takes a huge financial toll on your organization, but it also impacts your employees who put in honest time. If they aren’t padding their timesheets like their coworkers, they may have a lower paycheck because of their integrity and hard work. And that’s a formula for rapid turnover.

To keep your best hourly employees from jumping ship, you need to make sure you are offering them as much value as they are offering the organization. That starts with fair, accurate compensation.

Make Sure Communication Is Always Clear and Efficient

If your workforce is mobile, it follows that your communication should also be mobile. The good news is that there are countless tools today to help automate the most common work-related communications, like time-off requests.

Making communication a breeze for your hourly employees can reduce confusion and make them feel more connected to your organization.

Provide Sufficient Equipment and Resources

To do great work, people need the right tools and equipment. Your hourly employees are no exception. Expecting excellent results while neglecting to provide all the necessary resources is like asking someone to dig an irrigation ditch with a spork.

Now, this might seem like a no-brainer, but the fact is that many organizations are failing on this point. The Conference Board’s Job Satisfaction Survey found that only 63% of workers were satisfied with the quality of their equipment.

If hourly workers don’t find the support they need from your organization to perform their best work, you can bet they’ll go searching for it elsewhere.

How To Motivate Your Employees on Hourly Wages

Invest In Manager Training

Managers have a massive impact on employees’ day-to-day experiences at work. In fact, for many, the manager can make or break their decision to stay in their jobs.

On the other hand, an excellent manager can act as a mentor, coach, and advocate for employees, providing feedback and creating an incredible workplace experience.

But your organization can’t just fire managers and start over—you need to work with the talent you have now. Start shaping the employee experience for your hourly employees by shaping your managers. Focus on soft skills like listening and empathy, and teach your managers how to be coaches.

You also need to make sure your managers are equipped to handle more difficult conversations, such as answering compensation questions or addressing poor performance reviews. Develop strong leaders who can navigate such sensitive cases by balancing the needs of the employee and the needs of the organization.

Offer Relevant Development Opportunities

Most employees, whether salaried or hourly, want to know their next career steps. Where are they headed? What opportunities are there down the road for growth?

If you can provide learning and development opportunities like on-site training courses, career mentorship, or even tuition reimbursement, employees may change their perspectives. Instead of viewing their job as a hurdle along the way to where they  really  want to be, they can see how their work today is setting up future opportunities. Talent development strategies like employee journey mapping can help boost retention by giving employees a clear picture of their future with the company.

Consider Other Compensation, Too

It’s time to recognize and address the unique needs of your hourly workforce. From compensation and communication to learning and development opportunities, you can find ways to motivate your staff and engage your hourly employees in many ways. And when employees are engaged, the entire organization wins. Help ensure you are measuring your staff’s performance and experience properly with BambooHR.