Time or Money?

A recent workplace study from American Express reported that small business employers will give fewer bonuses this holiday, but more time off. Here’s a good account from the Pittsburgh Business Times. Many of the businesses mentioned in the report gave paid days off in lieu of bonuses. Imagine how nice it would be to hit the stores during the morning rather than after work with the rest of the mob. Some accounts painted this negatively: fewer bonuses. I prefer to think this is a positive sign, and a clever way for small business people to reward employees. Sure, we all need more money, but you’ll get more money with the next paycheck. You won’t get more time. There’s no reason smart business managers can’t use this reward system all year long. Have a good worker who did a great job on a hard project? Saying “thanks” is nice, but saying, “thanks, and take off after lunch,” is even nicer. Good workers will make up the time missed quickly. As a business manager, you’ll never notice any productivity drop from good employees who get a bonus afternoon or day off. If anything, morale will improve, other employees will notice, and everyone wins. Feel you can’t do without critical workers for a day or even an afternoon? Sure you can, because you do when they’re sick or traveling. If you’re big enough to have multiple departments, you may leave it up to each department head to parcel out free afternoons off with pay. A group of ten can easily cover for each other, and give one person an afternoon off every two weeks. If you provide one or more of the mobile productivity tools mentioned in Pockets Full of Technology, the employees will even be reachable. But the good will and morale improvements will be beyond measure.