As Taylor Swift wrapped up her worldwide hit Eras tour, the pop singer reportedly awarded her employees $197 million in bonuses, recognizing every member of the tour, from choreographers to truck drivers to the merch team.
The move, according to employee experience strategist Sujay Saha, is something business leaders can learn from.
While not every company can dole out millions of dollars in bonuses, finding ways to recognize workers can go a long way in employee appreciation, retention and culture building, Saha told HR Dive.
“A lot of times, we always skew in the direction of somehow recognizing employees with a lot of monetary incentives and think that is the only way of having the employee feel a sense of gratification,” said Saha, who is founder and president of Cortico-X, a consulting firm. “What I’ve seen is this immediate acknowledgment of good work done goes a very, very long way.”
In his experience, that can look like praising someone’s work in front of their colleagues or potential clients in an authentic way.
Swift, for her part, publicly thanked her crew after changing up the tour last year.
In the end, while money can help in the short term, marrying those rewards with other incentives and recognition will have longer lasting benefits, Saha said.
“It’s not about the gesture of taking out a big sum of money and distributing it; it’s really about that surprise factor that she must have created among people,” Saha said. “I think there’s a lot to be learned from the gesture.”
Consistency, too, matters, Saha said.
“Don’t do something for the heck of doing it once and forget about it,” he said.
Whether it’s launching an awards program or providing spot bonuses, the effort needs to be ongoing and equitable, Saha said.
“Make sure that you’re also being fair to not only that particular employee but your larger employee base, so that everybody gets an opportunity,” Saha said. Doing so can help a company build a sustainable business where people want to work long term, he said.
A key part of the strategy should also be transparency, Saha said. While leaders may not share specifics on bonus or cost details, it is important for workers “understand and appreciate the structure around why people are getting incentivized on certain things,” he said, adding that he finds it hard to always “walk the talk” in practice.
It’s not always easy to follow these three tenets — authenticity, consistency and transparency — but using them as a guide will help, Saha said.