A happy employee is a productive employee.

But ensuring that all the members of your staff are highly motivated isn’t just about giving them everything they want. Instead, it’s about offering them the things they need.

Of course, this could go beyond monetary incentives. When implemented correctly, the following eight uncommon benefits work better than money in keeping employees happy:

Assign Leaders Trained In Employee Motivation

Employee motivation isn’t just about how well-paid your people are in their jobs; it’s about how they feel while working in the company. This means that their interactions and the work environment should be your primary focus to keep them happy and motivated.

To cultivate a motivating culture, you must prioritize coaching your managers about how to handle their respective teams that will push employees to do better without alienating them. And for you to do that, you need to consider investing in an employee motivation training course.

Such programs cover useful topics to help leaders understand the people they supervise better. These also offer useful tips on how to use motivational techniques, like the expectancy theory, reinforcement theory, and object-oriented theory, to help employees become happier in their jobs the right way.

Support Their Professional Development

Another effective way to ensure that employees are motivated is to nurture their professional growth. This means you not only give them enough room to spread their wings, but also offer guidance and support so that they can reach their full potential.

One of the most straightforward ways of doing this is to provide resources for their education. Even better if you can set aside a training fund that they could use to improve their existing skills or learn new ones.

If you’re working in a skill-specific industry, it also pays to conduct your own in-house professional development training. This can prove to be a practical choice, especially if you’re looking to fill a position with specific credentials in mind.

Whatever the case, you must make sure your personnel have all they need to grow professionally.

Offer a Share of The Company Profit

It has been mentioned that money isn’t the only thing that could motivate employees. But practically speaking, cash is still one of the most attractive work benefits.

Of course, the manner of delivery could be improved. Instead of promising your employees extra bonuses that arrive like clockwork, why not cultivate a culture where incentives are achieved after working well as a team through profit-sharing?

Unlike regular bonuses and salaries, a profit share is compensation granted to eligible employees for their efforts to make sure that the company gains more profit within a given period.

For this benefit, employees get a specific percentage of the company’s profits, which could be equivalent to a substantial amount. The higher the company profit, the higher the amount of incentive employees will get.

This type of benefit allows companies to motivate their people to commit to the organization’s goals, work as a team, and, ultimately, boost business profitability.

Fund Wellness Programs

Besides the typical health insurance, you can initiate a program designed to encourage your employees to live healthy lives. This may include:

• gym memberships
• weight loss competitions
• smoking cessation goals
• health screenings

You could offer less frequent fitness and recreation activities, too, like health and wellness retreats, staycations at wellness resorts, and the like.

If possible, try to align your chosen wellness benefits to your brand. Take Reebok, for example. The company offers free fitness classes to employees at its onsite gym and CrossFit Box on-demand.

Support Mental Health

Besides physical fitness, companies should also take care of their people’s mental health. Take a page from Capital One Financials mental health support initiative and consider providing employees with:

• In-person or mobile counseling services
• Informational services and guidance through major life changes (e.g., relocation or having a baby)

Take Care Of Their Family

Caring for the people who depend on your employees is also a great way of motivating them. There are many ways to do this, but one of the best examples is to offer childcare support.

Provide a means for parents to find time for their children while earning for the family. This can come in the form of onsite childcare spaces, child-rearing financial assistance, and education insurance benefits.

You can also offer paid parental leaves to allow employees to take a break from work to take care of their families. This can come in the form of maternity, paternity, and adoption leaves.

Eliminate Boredom

Boredom is one of the biggest productivity and motivation killers. So keep things fresh and lively with activities that break the usual work routine.

Put a new spin on old tasks and rotate the responsibility of doing repetitive activities across the entire team. Don’t forget to encourage breaks – even short ones – to make sure that employees can interact.

You can also have short activities between tasks to break the ice. This can come in the form of an ice-breaker question, a quick catch-up, or even club activities.

Allow Flexible Work Hours

Work-life balance is one of the critical factors that affect employee happiness. To help your people achieve this, you might want to consider implementing flexible hours.

This lets your staff choose what time they will work for the day. Thus, giving them full control over how they balance work and life.

Take a page from Netflix’s job perks playbook and offer untracked work hours and vacation days. By focusing on what people get done rather than how long they do it, the company is providing their employees freedom of movement that helps motivate them to do their best at work.

Find More Ways To Motivate

Motivating employees doesn’t always mean you need to give them bonuses and monetary incentives.

In fact, people tend to do a better job when offered things they don’t usually get, like more time for family, freedom to decide their work hours, and opportunities for professional growth.