It’s almost 2012 and in honor of the New Year, it is time to freshen up your incentive program! I have ten ideas to improve and update your employee incentive program and will present the first five today and the last five on Thursday.
1. Start tracking points earned online
Employee incentives can easily be managed online and will eliminate the need for keeping point receipts and detailed spreadsheets. If you have been managing points manually, let an online incentive program do it for you and find out how much easier employee incentives can be. Not only will adding points be simple, you won’t have to keep track of how many points people have when incentives are ordered or returned. Onlineincentive program reporting will also help to ensure you have all the numbers and statistics available in Excel when you need this information.
2. Incorporate a leader board system
I was on the phone with a prospective client yesterday who was very interested in setting up an automated leader board system. His company is in the insurance industry and he was thinking about starting a sales incentive program for his thirty or so sales people. He let me know that his sales people were very motivated by competition and if each person could see how he or she was doing compared to everyone else, this would help to boost sales and the results of the employee incentive program.
3. Add a feedback form
One of the best ways to spice up your incentive program is to ask employees for their feedback. You will be able to collect feedback during 2012 and bring ideas that can help to increase results and participation. Employee incentive program feedback forms often ask people open ended questions such as what could be done to improve the program and how easy/difficult the incentive program website is to use.
4. Run a short term promotion-for a department like sales or for everyone like a wellness event
Have you been rewarding employees for reaching the same goals for more than a couple of years? If your answer is yes to this question, you could benefit from exploring other ways to engage employees in your incentive program. You may want to consider what a short term promotion like a sales contest or a onetime wellness event could do to help the incentive program gain attention and relevancy. These short term goals are often easy to track and points are given out for participating and for reaching a desired result (top ten sales producer or top ten finishers for a company-sponsored walk/run).
5. Hand out instant employee incentive points
Instant points are a great addition to any employee incentive program. Point codes can be generated for the point value and award category you would like. The codes are then printed on cards, certificates or tokens and then handed out by managers to employees who demonstrate desired behavior, most often core values or safety related behaviors. I have had a lot of fun this year designing instant point cards and for my clients who use them, they love having a way to immediately recognize employees.
All of these tips are sure to save you time and help to boost participation. Be sure to check back Thursday for the last five tips of the top ten ideas for your employee incentive program!