Many of my newer clients have come to realize that awarding employees with an incentive program is a great way to protect an important asset of a company. Many contemporary corporations have found that if you want to help a business survive economic downtimes, nurturing employees with an employee incentive program is the first place to start. The author of an article featured in the Student Operated Press last month focused in on the fact that many organizations fail as a result of their own failure to inspire employees with an effective incentive program.
Modern incentive programs are benefiting organizations across the United States. The flexibility of these programs allows them to go online and reach participants in many new ways. There are a few things that successful modern employee incentive programs have in common, and I wanted to elaborate on why these keys can contribute to the overall success of an organization for anyone starting an incentive program or re-evaluating a current program.
One trait that modern incentive programs possess is that they offer each participant lifestyle, name brand merchandise to select from. Tangible merchandise has been a proven motivator for many years now and organizations have realized that participants are more interested in earning name brand rewards. For example, last month Employee Evaluation blog discussed how companies can ensure an incentive programwill be successful, and one of the recommendations was to use merchandise gifts. The author comments that tangible merchandise gifts are better for an incentive program because they are a cost effective way to motivate and engage employees as opposed to cash bonuses.
The next key to modern incentive programs is that they have goals that are attainable and achievable in both the short and long term. Many organizations will evaluate what new goals should be introduced at the beginning of each year to ensure that the incentive program is going in the same direction as the company. Chad Simon, author of “Using an Incentive Program to Motivate Employees,” also explains that employers, who set goals and only evaluate them annually, are missing an opportunity to take corrective action throughout the year when evaluating on at least a quarterly basis.
This leads me to the last important key to modern incentive programs, the reporting capability has to be available from the inception of the program to ensure that its success can be quantified and tracked over time. Many of my clients have status reports delivered on a monthly basis to ensure that goals are being reached and that people are involved in the company incentive program.
Offering lifestyle merchandise, attainable goals and reporting capabilities will help to ensure the success of any incentive program. These traits of modern incentive programs should be kept in mind when you are starting or re-evaluating an employee award program.
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