How Applauz Goals Can Help Engage and Motivate Employees

Imagine the following scenarios:

Scenario 1: Your manager or supervisor asks you to complete a task. That’s it. Just a please and thank you.

Scenario 2: Your manager asks you to complete the same task, but in this scenario, they tell you there is a real reward waiting for you at the end.

In which scenario do you feel you would be more motivated to start and finish the task?

Most people choose the second one. A reward is almost always welcomed as a means to boost motivation. For managers looking for ways to motivate employees, rewards are a valuable option.

Not all tasks are created equal

That said, the daily life of an employee is not always like these oversimplified scenarios. Most professionals are tasked with a wide variety of assignments; not all are created equal. 

In other words, employees might enjoy some of their assigned tasks, and an external reward won’t do much to boost motivation. In contrast, employees might find other tasks uninspiring. In this case, a reward is often welcomed to get the motivation ball rolling.

That’s where Applauz Goals come in.

Today we’ll look at Applauz Goals and how this incentivization module can help managers with the following:

1. Getting the ball rolling and motivating employees.
2. Rewarding employee accomplishments.
3. Keeping track of employee progress and efforts.

How Applauz Goals Can Help Engage and Motivate Employees

1 — Motivate Employees With Transparency

At work, we all favour some of our assigned tasks more than others. Yet, there is one thing we can all agree on: When we know that our hard work will be noticed by a supervisor, it’s easier to maintain our efforts.

That’s because transparency is a great motivator. In other words, when employees trust that leaders will take notice of their work, they will feel motivated to keep the ball rolling.

Applauz Goals help promote manager-employee transparency. Simply said, with Goals, employees are never left to wonder if their efforts will be noticed and rewarded. 

Pro Tip: Managers can use Goals in parallel with a project management or productivity tool to provide that extra boost of incentive to start and finish a project or task.

2 — Reward The Completion of All Kinds of Objectives

That said, there are many ways managers can use Goals to incentivize employees. Goals can be used for other objectives, not just work-related ones.

Organized by Goal type, here are some concrete ideas for Goals that managers can set up.

Performance-based Goals:

• Create a new Goal for performance-based improvement. (i.e. Obtain an average customer satisfaction score of 97% or above.)
• Create a new Goal for the completion of a high-level objective. (i.e. Meet all Q1 deadlines.) 
• Create a new Goal for a medium-term mandate or assignment. (i.e. Complete intern evaluations.)
• Create a new Goal for a work sprint or a specific task. (i.e. Organize files on the shared drive.)

Professional Development & Learning Goals:

• Create a new Goal for learning and growth objectives. For example:
• Read a new book on [specific subject of interest]
• Complete 8 hours of online training in [area of interest] in the next 3 months.
• Attend a webinar or workshop series.

Personal Growth & Wellness Goals:

• Create new Goals for personal growth objectives. For example:
• Practice a minimum of 30 minutes of deep breathing meditation per week.
• Walk or bike to work at least 3X per week.
• Do daily stretching exercises at least 3X per week.

Pro Tip: Remember the SMART acronym when planning goals. Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timebound.

How are employees rewarded for completing Goals?

When a Goal is marked as complete, there are two ways employees will be automatically rewarded:

• Applauz Points
• Badges

When setting a new Goal, managers can assign the desired quantity of Applauz Points or a Badge (or both) and these rewards will be received by the employee when the Goal is marked as complete.

Applauz Points are the currency of appreciation. With Points, employees can shop for custom Perks or in the Rewards Marketplace. 

Badges can also be assigned to a Goal. Each Badge represents the value the employee brought to the task, such as “mad skills,” “thinking bigger,” and “above and beyond.”  

Badges are anything but generic. They celebrate and highlight what the employee did differently, which is critical in giving powerful employee recognition.

Pro Tip: Managers or administrators can create their company's own custom Badges to better reflect their department's culture and goals.

3 — Keep Track of Employee Efforts

On any given day or week, managers and supervisors ask employees to complete a variety of tasks and assignments. 

For example:

• Short-term tasks that need immediate action.
• Long-term assignment to complete over weeks or even months.
• Medium-term tasks that take a few days. 

In short, there are so many different types of tasks and assignments. Many of them (especially those spontaneous, ad-hoc tasks) are never put on paper. 

As a result, employees are putting in effort and work. Still, they are never officially rewarded or recognized for achieving them. 

Failing to recognize these small but essential contributions can quickly lead to employee resentment. It shouldn't be a surprise when disengagement follows.

So how can managers keep track of everything that their team has accomplished?

Formalizing tasks and assignments into Goals on Applauz gives managers the tools to reward employees, but most importantly, to keep track of all their employees' successes, big and small.  

In the process, managers will quickly spot trends. For example: 

•  Spotting a star employee who consistently completes all their Goals.
•  Or spotting workers who are falling behind and missing Goals more regularly.

As a result, managers can better tailor their coaching or motivational strategies accordingly.

All You Need to Know

Applauz Goals is a useful tool for managers to keep track of employee objectives and offer timely rewards for completing them.

With Goals, your company's managers will be able to:

• Motivate employees with transparency: Employees will feel good about maintaining effort because they can trust that their hard work will be recognized.
  
  
• Reward the completion of a variety of objectives: All kinds of objectives can be turned into an Applauz Goal. For example, reading a book or completing an online course.
  
  
• Keep track of employee efforts (big and small): Applauz Goals gives valuable data to managers. Managers can easily see which employees are keeping up with their objectives and who might be falling behind.