You’re a member of Tradesource and know there are ways you can reward your employees through the use of your barter dollars. Here are a few ways in which you can use the trade dollars you’ve accumulated all year as a way to reward your employees for their loyalty and great work throughout the year.
- Bonuses – As a business owner you’d like to reward employees for a job well done or for having met sales goals or as a year-end bonus, trade dollars can be offered as the compensation. Some business owners have reported they are able to offer their employees a larger “bonus” when they offered trade or restaurant scrip.
- Social events and incentive programs – Incentive programs can motivate employees. With trade, you could offer incentives for things such as perfect attendance or perfect punctuality, suggestion box ideas that were implemented or any number of other ways to reward employees and boost morale. You can even save your trade dollars and host an event for the employees.
- Wages/compensation – Chances are you won’t be paying your employees in all trade dollars but it certainly makes for a nice hiring bonus or an additional part of the compensation package. You could offer an employee a $2 an hour raise – $1 in cash and $1 in trade. An employer could pay for special projects or overtime in trade. The barter part of the compensation is deposited directly by the employer into the employee’s individual trade account. The employee will have access to the other members of the trade association so he or she can then use the earned trade dollars to make purchases from other trade association members.
- Training programs – Training programs are a perk that is nice to offer but is rarely in the budget. With trade, though, you could have access to individuals and companies that offer employee training programs.
- Health and medical benefits – Because of the rising cost of health care coverage, many companies find they can’t offer health care benefits as part of the compensation package. With trade, though, employers find they could often offer access to healthcare if there are doctors, dentists, ophthalmologists, health club memberships and even massage salons on trade. If available, a company can set aside a certain amount of trade dollars per employee to use on bartered medical services.
Trade is a great way to offer your employees additional incentives and compensation without breaking the bank.