How do you recogine and reward your team?

Having a good system in place can make a huge difference.

With our industry’s ongoing skills shortage, finding and retaining good staff can be a challenge. Having a good recognition and rewards system in place for your team can make all the difference — and it can make your business more profitable, too.

Just ask Capricorn Member Corey Winter, owner of Supernatural Auto Detailing in Perth. He introduced a bonus model which sees his team get a midyear and end-of-year payment, based on the profits of the business. He says this has not only helped him keep good people longterm but has also lifted morale and made his business more profitable.

“Before starting my own business, I worked in many companies and made them a lot of money but never got recognised for it,” he said. “When we started this business, I wanted the staff to feel like they were more than a number. It’s about bringing them in and making them feel a part of the success of the business. It changes their perspective from the outset.”

Detailers are incentivised to be more profitable on each job they do, while not compromising on doing quality work.

“We realised that if you reward the team correctly, they’ll do better work, and your reputation will grow,” Corey said.

His staff can also access part of their pay early if they need it (because “life happens”), take out no-interest loans from the business, or enter lease-to-buy arrangements on new equipment, through the business.

Supernatural employs eight people and has been trading for a decade (two decades, if you count a previous iteration of the business). Corey has two team members who have been with the business for more than seven years, in a part of the industry where you’re lucky to keep an employee for 12 months.

“For our long-termers, the other thing we do is that for every year they’ve been with the business we put aside $1,000 from our end-ofyear profit for them,” Corey said.

That sounds incredibly generous.

“You have to weigh up how much money do you want in your pocket versus how much stress and trouble do you want to have,” Corey said. “I don’t live in a mansion and I don’t have four Ferraris, but I think for most business owners, quality of life is as important as the dollars. If I said to most of them, ‘I could improve your quality of life 50 per cent, but it’s going to cost you $5,000 a year’, I think 90 per cent of them would take it.”

Quality of life was also key for Ange Wall, Business Manager of Accelerate Automotive in Coopers Plains, Queensland. Four years ago, the workshop switched to a four-day week.

“As business owners we wanted a bit of work-life balance and flexibility and when we looked at it, we thought why don’t we offer it to all the team as well?” she said.

After taking the idea to their staff, Accelerate switched to a four-day week. Initially staff could choose which day they wanted, then they changed to closing the workshop on Fridays—which was the workshop's quietest day—to give everyone a three-day weekend. The team work longer hours Monday to Thursday and still work a 38-hour week.

“Our turnover results actually improved,” Ange said. “April, for example, is horrible for most businesses because of Easter and the public holidays, but this year we had our best month in nine months.”

Ange said the switch to four days had helped build a positive culture in the workshop, which had resulted in longevity of tenure for their team of nine.

“The other thing we do is we’ll talk to them about how we’re going from a results perspective and say, if we keep trending like this, how would you like us to reward you?” she said.

She said staff last year could have chosen a cash bonus but instead elected to go to AutoCare in Melbourne together.

“They love what they do and they’re interested in learning and growing, and they want to attend those events for professional development,” she said.

Ange said it was also important to recognise staff achievements. Accelerate has a private Facebook group where team members can share their individual achievements for the week, so they can be celebrated, and perhaps rewarded with a fuel voucher or a thoughtful, personalised gift.

“My belief is if you look after the team, they’ll look after the customer,” Ange said.

Corey agreed.

“Start with your people first,” he said. “Start with your people and you’ll be successful, no matter what.”