Low-Cost Employee Incentives

As we look at the role of the employee in making your company customer-centric, we're hearing a lot from authors who recommend treating employees better. But when you're a small business, you don't have a lot of flexibility to incent your employees. You can't give them trips. You can't always give them the best technology to work with. So what can you do?

When I worked at a firm where I had no budget but several direct and many more dotted-line employees, I found a couple of no cost actions seemed to go a long way. One is very simple: praise. Some of the people I worked with had never been told they were doing a good job. Too many previous bosses had feared that praising an employee meant the employee would demand a raise. But I found they were just happy to finally get recognition. Another thing I had to play around with was hours. When the employee had done a great job, I would often tell him or her to take off early. In turn, I had employees who turned things in on their vacations. Or came in early when they knew I was swamped. So these simple things paid off in droves.

What else can small businesses or mid-level managers do?