In a healthcare organization, the staff's productivity is significant in pushing the entity's agendas. For healthcare service providers, having a productive staff unit can lead to scheduling more patients, which will help the facility attain its goals.

While there are several ways to improve staff's productivity, using incentives is one of the most common and successful ones. If selected, implemented, and monitored perfectly, incentive programs can increase employee performance by about 22%. On the other hand, team incentives can improve performance by about 44%.

Here, we provide you with some ideas on incentivizing and rewarding your staff to improve their productivity levels and job satisfaction.

What is an Incentive?

An employee incentive is anything that encourages your staff to do something. Most companies and organizations rely on incentive programs to increase their sales growth and profit, create emotional bonds between their staff and their customers, and influence the clients' behaviors.

In a healthcare setting, incentives can motivate your staff to schedule more patients and attend to them accordingly. In the end, this boosts the patients' satisfaction levels, and eventually, more people would love to use your services.

The Difference between an Incentive and Motivation

Incentives and motivation have different meanings and should never be used interchangeably. Motivation focuses on the behaviors of individual staff. Here, employees undertake activities because they are willing to; they are more enthusiastic about the whole thing.

For incentives, employees do something because of the reward and might not be enthusiastic about the idea. Either way, incentives usually get the job done because they are straightforward for all the involved parties.

How to Improve Staff Productivity Using Incentives

People working in the healthcare industry crave recognition, support, and appreciation for all they do. Given how exhausting the nature of the job is, little incentives can go a long way into boosting their productivity levels. Here are some examples and tips on how to go about it:

1. Offer a monthly spa day

After a long working month, offering a spa day for your staff can help them regain their physical shape and get them ready to go again.

The spa industry in the United States is an ever-growing one, with its global market size expected to grow to over 127.6 billion U.S dollars by 2022. With benefits such as de-stressing, enhancing sleep, relieving pain, reducing headaches, and releasing serotonin and dopamine, a spa day can help your staff to remain healthy and improve their overall productivity.

2. Provide gift cards

For the longest time, cash has been the main reward option for many employees in the healthcare industry. However, gift cards have far more advantages than cash and can significantly improve the productivity of your staff.

Gift cards allow your staff to spend on things that they enjoy rather than things like an oil change. When your team shares what they have bought with their gift cards, it will spark excitement around the incentive. It’s also a great holiday gift idea to pay your employees a little thanks.

3. Employee recognition

Employees that perform excellently deserve recognition. Regularly appreciated employees have improved productivity levels, proper engagement, unwavering loyalty, and are bound to commit fewer mistakes.

You can recognize your staff in different ways, such as using "thank you" notes for the people who go out of their way to ensure that things run as they should. From caring for the patients to ensuring that the facility is clean, always appreciate and recognize your staff for everything they do.

Another form of employee recognition strategy has quarterly or annual ceremonies and awards where you honor your staff and appreciate those who have upheld the culture of your facility.

4. Better pay for productivity

A financial incentive will keep your staff happy any day. They are designed to inspire employee loyalty and increase productivity. However, you must have a clear pattern through which financial incentive programs run in your organization. Your employees must understand what they need to do and have proper, regular communications on the same.

Even though there are many financial incentives, a healthcare facility can take advantage of a few, such as raises and end-of-the-year bonuses. You can give raises to your performing staff every year while giving bonuses regularly depending on their productivity levels.

5. Give extra days off

Medical staff is humans too. Humans get tired; humans need rest. After a long working week or month, give your staff some extra days off interchangeably or more holidays towards the end of the year. This will provide them with more time to rest, connect with their families, and eventually, they will come back to work re-energized and ready to go again.

Your staff can also use the extra vacation days to get their mental state back in shape. Mental health issues have been on the rise, with about 93% of health care professionals battling stress-related issues since the pandemic struck.

How to Tell Whether an Incentive is Good for You

While it is true that incentives can boost the productivity of your staff and eventually lead to better work efficiency, not all will work for you. As a healthcare facility, you can tell that an incentive is perfect if it compensates, rewards, recognizes, or appreciates your staff.

Additionally, incentives should promote good behavior in your workplace, not just the goals you want to achieve. You should be careful not to give the impression that incentives are your staff's entitlements, and you should not go out of your budget to make a particular incentive work.

Reach out to the Experts

At DearDoc, we understand that you need to take care of your patients in the best way possible. For that, we offer cloud-based software solutions that help to reinvent the way new patients meet their doctors.

We are determined to change the standards of healthcare service provision and help our clients schedule more patients. Reach out to DearDoc today for solutions that can help you grow your practice:

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