The perceived benefits of employee attendance incentives are to give the employee some control over their income, and give them a greater sense of responsibility for their jobs. They are also meant to stimulate the employee to work harder than they might otherwise and perhaps find a more effective way to get people to go to work more consistently. However the employee attendance incentive has to be something of value to the employees it is meant to motivate. Without a sense of value, the desire to do better will not be there and attendance will not improve.

Many companies run these employee attendance incentive programs on a quarterly basis to retain interest year round. They realize that if you run the program yearly, many employees might loose interest before the end of the year and the program will not have the intended effects.

Control over income is a persuasive argument for employee attendance incentives. However this motivation is only temporary, since money is an ineffective long term motivator for a lot of people. Also employees have little ability in reality to alter their behavior significantly in order to affect their earning potential. However employee attendance incentives are meant to provide employees with a motivating factor to avoid unnecessary absenteeism. They are meant as rewards for reducing absenteeism.

The types of incentive programs used by companies are numerous. Some popular employee attendance incentives are things like cash bonuses, gift certificates, travel rewards and big ticket items such as electronics. Some companies allow employees to cash-in unused sick days at the end of every quarter, others give an employee two hours of bonus pay for every month of perfect attendance; and still others provide employees with a buffet lunch, a certificate of achievement, or even a scratch-off card concealing prizes.

One of the most important things to keep in mind is that the employee attendance incentive program that is used should be catered to your company and employees. This is easily accomplished by allowing employees to help you develop the incentive program. Furthermore, their participation in the inception of this employee attendance incentive may very well be a motivator in and of itself.

The duration of the employee attendance incentive program is also vital, and allowing your employees to help determine the length of time between incentives. Some companies find that simply rewarding employees with perfect attendance once a year works for them, while others decide once a month suits their situation better, and still others decide once quarterly or even once a week works best. The general rule of thumb is to reward workers more frequently the younger they are and the more difficult the work is to perform, however knowing your employees is what best determines what duration to put on your employee attendance incentive program. Also, it is best to start with small incentives and work up to larger ones if necessary, since if you start with the larger ones, what more can you add to make the employee attendance incentive program more attractive after the novelty has worn off?