Aug 28, 2022

Leave management and time tracking software in rewarding and motivating employees

0 min

Share on:

Leave management and time tracking software in rewarding and motivating employees

Developing good habits in employees and motivating them to do their best isn't easy. Thanks to the work time management software, you can keep your employees engaged and reward them with attractive prices at little to no extra costs.

Modern time tracking and leave management software, such as Calamari, give admins many convenient features that can be used to create competitions and games for employees. They are also the best possible tools to reward employees with attractive benefits – like extra free days, longer breaks, or shorter work time on a given day.

In this article, you will learn how leave management and time-tracking software can be powerful tools to motivate employees and increase employee engagement. You’ll find out how HR systems use rewards, gamification, and goal setting to improve performance and morale. Discover how to build a positive workplace culture where employees feel valued, productive, and happy.

How to use HR management tools to motivate employees – work time rewards

Additional day off, fewer hours of work on Monday or Friday, longer break – those are very attractive rewards, especially at the end of the quarters and after a long time without vacation, when they feel tired.

In this hard time, a good motivator is what both employees and employers need. People, of course, require some reward for their hard work at the end of the quarter, and their employers require them to do their best a little longer. That's when every extra hour of resting sounds sweet.

Reward for work performance

One of the benefits employers can offer their subordinates is extra free days or hours to take when they require them or paying employees for additional time spent at work.

To get the day off, employees need to do something that gives better than usually expected results. It can't be something easy and available to achieve for everyone. A great prize needs to come with great performance.

It is possible to reward employees for their sales results, attitude, punctuality, great contact with customers, or anything else you want your employees to focus on improving. The best of them will get the main prize – an extra day off.

To make sure that all the rewards will be given to the right people and they won't be forgotten, you can create a new type of absence in the Calamari admin panel. You can name it “reward for…” and when someone wins the prize, you can give them an extra day as a +1 to their “rewards day-off” limits.

Next, you have to create the table when you write down the winners of the games you created. After announcing the lucky ones, you can give them their reward in Calamari.

Our vacation tracker allows creating an absence type for a whole day, half of it, and for a chosen number of hours, thanks to which it's easy to set the reward of the exact length you want.

It's a great way not only to motivate employees but also to help them in developing good habits like punctuality and efficiency at work, limiting or quitting smoking, being more positive, exercising, and so on.

Gamification

The possibilities of gaining new levels, getting prizes, collecting experiences, and developing new skills are all well known from games, mostly PC, iOS, and Android ones, these days. It turned out that using those games' mechanics in companies can be an effective method of motivating employees.

The name “gamification” was first used in 2008 by Brett Terrill. Since then, the system has proved its usability and is developing to be more and more efficient. According to studies, workplace gamification can measurably improve task performance quality over time, supporting the use of leaderboards and points to motivate employees [Source: sciencedirect.com, 2022, An experimental study on the effects of gamification on task performance].

The main motivator is the points system. The more points, the higher level of experience, new skills, challenges, and what's most important – better prizes. It's also a convenient way for employees to track their work performance on their own. Seeing the EXP bar closer and closer to the end, it's easier to force yourself to do something. Even if you're tired, have a headache, or just want to go home to easy ice cream while watching a new episode of Netflix's series.

According to research, goal clarity is a core driver of motivation and performance; structured goal setting within gamified systems enhances effort, persistence, and results [Source: med.stanford.edu, September 2002, Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation].

Gamification makes both external and internal motivation grow!

The constantly evolving gamification trend is becoming more and more popular. In 2015, according to Markets and Markets company's research, the gamification market was priced at $1.65 billion. In 2020 its price was already $9.1 billion. Specialists estimate that the gamification market price will be $30 billion at the end of 2025.

If you take a vacation tracker and time-registering tools in your company, you can create simple gamification based on work time-related data. It will give you a chance to see if gamification is the right way for your organization without investing in fancy new software.

Using Calamari to create simple gamification to motivate employees won't replace the solid gamification tools but can be a good sample of the effects you can get.

Examples of rewarding employees using time-tracking software

Knowing that motivating employees with prizes can give nice results, it's worth using time-tracking software to do so. In exchange for good results, punctuality, and other actions that companies encourage them to do, employees can get attractive prizes thanks to the Calamari work time tracking tool.

Working time benefits as rewards

You can ensure employees have various kinds of rewards, like additional hours and days off or remote work for their work performance and also for developing good, healthy habits that your organization approves.

Reward for limiting or quitting smoking

Smoke breaks seem harmless – it's only 5 minutes – someone may say. But those 5 minutes a few times a day can give over 40 minutes of additional break not counted in the work time. That means it's over half an hour when your employees aren't working as they should. Yearly, employees who smoke cost companies an additional $5,000.

Usually, employees smoke about 10 cigarettes during the workday. Limiting this number is then a benefit for the employee's health and the company's efficiency.

A great solution to fight a smoking habit (or worse, addiction) that motivates people to make this change in their lives can be a shorter workday. You can make it on Monday mornings or Friday evenings, but only for those employees who stopped smoking during work hours.

In Calamari, you can set the shorter workday in the admin panel for chosen employees. As an admin, you can always add or remove people from this additional work schedule, so you can use it to reward a healthy lifestyle in your organization with ease.

Punctuality bonus

Another time-stealing problem in the usual workflow is the tardiness problem. It's very common for employees to be 5-10 minutes late, sometimes even longer, a few times a week. Every 5 minutes of lateness a day gives another 25 minutes of lost work.

You can try fighting with tardiness in many ways – with a joke, by adding employees extra work hours for the time they lost, or by motivating them to get better to have more spare time.

Giving the most punctual employees the additional time for a break during the day is a great way to fight with lost time, and at the same time, it has a good influence on employees' morale.

When some people get to work late, others make their morning ritual before actually starting their work, which lasts about 5-10 minutes. But with a chance to get a prize for being punctual, there's no one to act unfairly; therefore, there's no one to feel cheated.

To find out which of the employees is the most punctual, you can use Calamari's monthly reports with detailed info about work time. By filtering the report, finding the winner is effortless.

Additional time off for great achievements

The prize must fit the work that has to be done to get it. So the better the achievement, the higher the prize. That's why the best prizes should wait for the unusual work performance.

That is why the employee with the most outstanding results – extremely high sales results, winning a valuable contract, conducting an effective marketing campaign, or creating an extraordinary product – should get the most outstanding reward. And the higher the price is, the more people try harder to get it.

This special reward can be the additional leave day from the special day-offs limit called “prizes.” You can create a specific type of absence for every challenge or use the same one for all of them.

Winners should be announced at the All Hands Meeting in the office so, except for the prize itself, the winner can get the recognition, fame, and congratulations they deserve. Being recognized for a good job is a great motivation in itself.

Help in finding abuses, the best, and the worst results

Calamari makes it easy to collect archive data about the work time of employees – their lateness and worked hours included. In the report that can be easily generated from the administration panel, you can find the number of hours worked each day, time spent on working over given projects, break time, lateness, and overtime. You can also find other information connected to the working time.

Thanks to the report, you will quickly find people with the best and the worst results. It's as simple as creating a new absence type to give some leisure time to the best-performing employees.

Gamification with time and vacation tracker

Time-tracking software collects data about the hour of starting and ending the workday. They also register the beginning and the end of every break an employee calls during the day.

In Calamari, you can track time over projects to get even and set challenges according to the expected results. HR management tools can be used to create simple gamification that will help you encourage subordinates to develop good, healthy habits that help them be more productive and less tired during the day.

New habits equal more points, higher levels, and better prizes in more challenging tasks to do. Additional hours and days off are very attractive for employees, and organizations can benefit from this motivating system. Creating simple gamification based on Calamari and Excel sheets will only take a few minutes and can significantly limit the time lost due to lateness, smoke breaks, and other reasons.

Summary

Motivating employees takes more than financial incentives – it requires structure, fairness, and recognition. Using Calamari’s leave and time tracking software, organizations can combine performance management, gamification, and incentive systems to help employees stay motivated and engaged. A well-designed system helps ensure employees feel valued, fostering higher employee morale and long-term success.

Want to see how Calamari can transform your employee motivation strategy? Check out Calamari and discover how smart HR tools can help you reward and engage your team effectively.

Stay up to date with modern HR practices – join our Newsletter today!

You are welcome to contact us any time if you have other questions.

FAQ – Employee motivation with time and leave tools

1. How can management tools motivate employees effectively?

Using management software to motivate employees helps align personal goals with company objectives. When employees feel valued through recognition and fair tracking, employee motivation and productivity rise.

2. What kind of incentive systems work best for employee engagement?

A digital incentive system combining gamification and rewards is a strong motivator for teams. These tools give employees autonomy while rewarding consistency and good performance.

3. How do reward programs improve employee motivation?

Offering bonuses, extra leave, or shorter workdays is a proven motivator that enhances employee morale. When employees feel appreciated, they are more invested in their work and show stronger employee engagement.

4. Why is employee engagement key to organizational success?

High employee engagement creates a positive workplace culture where people feel connected to their mission. Engaged employees perform better and report higher job satisfaction, leading to long-term success.

5. How does an HR system help keep employees motivated and happy?

An integrated HR system helps managers motivate employees by automating performance management and reward tracking. It ensures employees feel valued and reduces disengagement caused by unclear recognition.

6. What is the role of performance management in motivation?

Modern performance management systems support goal setting, performance reviews, and employee feedback. These features help employees understand their progress toward performance goals and work harder to achieve them.

7. How does autonomy increase employee motivation?

Studies based on self-determination theory (Deci) show that employees who feel more autonomy are more motivated and engaged. Giving employees freedom to manage their work builds trust and reduces micromanaging.

8. How can performance reviews be used as a motivator instead of criticism?

Performance reviews that include positive feedback and clear goal setting help employees feel valued. According to the Harvard Business Review, receiving feedback regularly increases motivation and lowers turnover rates.

9. Why does organizational culture impact employee morale so strongly?

A supportive organizational environment and transparent communication encourage employees by demonstrating fairness and care. When workplace culture rewards effort, employees feel secure, motivated, and loyal.

10. What lessons about motivation came from frontline workers during COVID-19?

During COVID-19, frontline teams showed that intrinsic motivation and relatedness mattered as much as financial rewards. According to case studies on human motivation, recognizing emotional and psychological needs helps employees perform better and recover from pandemic stress.

Written by Calamari

Calamari is a comprehensive HR Information System (HRIS) delivering powerful tools for leave management, time tracking, and employee database management. The platform streamlines complex HR processes, enhances company-wide transparency, and eliminates manual paperwork. Designed for businesses of all sizes with particular benefits for distributed and international teams, Calamari seamlessly integrates with popular productivity tools like Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Teams.

Leave management and time tracking software in rewarding and motivating employees