Forbes.com reports more than half of the companies polled whose staffs had been cut in the last year would be rebuilding to pre-recession levels in the next two years. Compared to this time last year, organizations are switching from a cost control strategy to a growth strategy; the switch may be leading you to ask, “What can we do now to train and retain top performers?” I have three questions for managers to answer in order to evaluate a current incentive program performance and ensure it is working to achieve your employee retention and other goals.
Question 1- What is working?
When answering this question, start by defining the current goals of the incentive program. Then take a look at your award reports to determine whether participants are earning points for reaching the goals of the incentive program. If people are not earning points, then you should ask around to find out if people are aware of the incentive program and its benefits. There are many incentive program supplements that can be used to communicate an award program and increase participation and interest.
If people are earning points, take a look at how many people are participating and whether these individuals are from a specific group or department. By highlighting what managers are doing in departments with people who are reaching incentive program goals and earning awards, you can apply some of their methods in departments where people are not participating in the program.
Question 2- What else could the incentive program do?
This next question should get you thinking about where your company is headed and how this should be reflected in the incentive program goals. Find out if any future projects or plans could be facilitated by the incentive program. Alternatively, you should investigate any goals that could be retired or phased out.
Incentive programs can be developed for a variety of reasons and although you may have started a reward program to increase safety or job performance, you are not limited to the initial intent of the program. I often find that after an incentive program has been in place for a year, a client will decide to incorporate peer to peer recognition to increase teamwork and the overall recognition culture. If you designed a program for your sales people, check with supervisors of other departments or divisions that could benefit from offering rewards for accomplishing goals. IncentiveMag.com points out a recent study estimated 25 percent of companies will be increasing their incentive program budget. Expanding your focus to include new goals and additional participants is a great way to spread your budget around while increase employee retention in multiple areas of your business.
Question 3- What do employees think?
Aside from evaluating the results of your incentive program, you should also be interested in learning what participants think about the goals of the program, the types of rewards being offered and what could be done to improve or tweak the program in the future. For any company with an online incentive program, adding an employee feedback form to your reward program website is an excellent way to gather employee ideas and make sure your incentive program is aligned with what is valued by employees. You can ask employees to submit feedback online by developing an email blast informing everyone when the feedback form is available and how it can be accessed.
After answering these three questions, you should have a better idea of what your incentive program is doing for your company, what it could help you accomplish in the future and how your participants feel about the program. Evaluate your incentive program at the end of this year as you develop a growth oriented strategy and you will be better situated to retain employees in the post recession era.
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