To celebrate Phase Eight’s first birthday at Lakeside and provide staff with an incentive to keep up their excellent standard of work, I devised and implemented our incentive scheme in April.

I couldn’t be happier with the results – it’s proved to be a great birthday present to the store.

The scheme centred around a Best Employee Award, split into three categories: customer service, teamwork and going that extra mile for the company. To really involve staff, they each had to nominate one of their peers, giving examples of their excellence in each category.

It has been a fantastic way of motivating staff, encouraging them to evaluate their performance, as well as that of their peers. It gave them the chance to learn from others, looking at what they did differently and how they can use others’ knowledge and sales techniques to improve.

The winner was announced at a special birthday meal at one of Lakeside’s Boardwalk restaurants last month. The staff member who won was over the moon. She won because her peers felt that her excellent customer service, helpful nature and general can-do attitude meant she was a great colleague to learn from.

The feedback and recognition our winner has been given has made a huge difference to her confidence. But, perhaps most importantly, it has improved staff morale. I have such a great team that motivation was high already, but I have seen them putting the skills they have learned from others into practice with added enthusiasm. I will definitely run the award again, because it is a great motivational tool.

Sameh Trad, Phase Eight, Lakeside