Replacing Traditional Management with Innovative Management Methods

In today’s day and age employees are looking for more than a paycheck at the end of the week. Employees today would rather have work-life balance and innovative benefits such as flextime, working remotely, bringing their dog to work, taking a catnap on the clock, and even gym memberships rather than just the traditional salary, health benefits, and 401k.

Flextime has become huge in the small business sector. Flextime is when employees choose their in and out time but still work a forty hour week. For example, an employee may choose to come in at 10am instead of the traditional 9am and work until 6pm to make up the extra hour. Flextime improves employees work life balance because it provides flexibility to employees that need to make arrangements such as doctors’ appointments, dentist appointments, and so on. Please note that when a small business decides to allow flextime there is usually a core time when all employees must be present. The purpose of core time is for collaboration and meetings. Core time is usually the busiest hours of the operation. For more information on the benefits of flextime, check out this article http://muse.cm/2BsEzhW. 

Working Remotely is another innovative and popular incentive that employees are asking for. There is nothing like working from the comfort of your own home. Some small businesses allow employees to choose a designated day to work from home. Other small businesses offer it as an incentive only, for instance maybe only the employee of the month gets to work from home two days a week for that month. What a motivator that is! Who wouldn’t want to work from home a couple days of the week? I know what you’re thinking… how do managers know if the employee is actually working while at home? There are many systems such as ConnectWise Manage that track employee productivity while remoted into the company’s network. Talk to your IT professional to see what options your business has.

My favorite innovative benefit to offer to employees is bringing their pet to work. This option is much newer than flextime and remote work. There are many positives to allowing employees to bring their pet to work. For starters, pets reduce stress! If you’re thinking about allowing your employees to bring their pets to work, read this article on the pros & cons first http://bit.ly/2DCZzUM. Also, keep in mind that if you are going to allow employees to bring their pets make sure you have a pet policy in place that lays out all the rules and regulations.

Have you ever heard that catnaps make you more productive? Well, it’s true! Studies have shown that people that take a 15-min nap during the day are more productive than people that don’t. Small businesses are now creating spaces where employees can go to rest their eyes and relax for a few minutes. Employees come back from there catnap refreshed and ready to get back to work! How cool is that?

Last but certainly not least is offering gym memberships to your employees. This is a great incentive for both your employee and your business. Employees that are more active and healthy tend to be happier. Healthy employees also provide lower insurance costs. It’s a win-win for everyone!

It’s time to replace or add on to the traditional benefits with some of these innovative benefits. These innovative benefits will not only lower your employee turnover but create a positive and fun atmosphere to work! What are you waiting for? It’s time to make some changes!