Picture this: your boss comes into the office all excited Monday morning to tell you that she has worked out this great incentive program for all the staff, and if you all reach the targets she’s set then the entire company will be off to Mauritius for a week.
Is everybody excited? Some no doubt will be, especially those staffers with no kids or family to speak of. But what about the couple of people in the sales team who have been to Mauritius before? Or the receptionist who’s frightened of travelling on planes? Or the administration staff who are already struggling to pay their mortgage and don’t have any spare cash to fund the small, hidden charges that they know they’ll accrue on a week away? (Even the $100 taxi fare to the airport will be a stretch).
So there you have it: the well-intentioned plan by the big boss to make everyone achieve greater things is already having the opposite effect with the many people the program is targeted towards.
But thankfully, it doesn’t have to be that way. A good incentive practitioner understands that getting the reward right is of paramount importance to the overall effectiveness of any performance improvement program. In fact, the right reward can make or break an entire program.
As Virginia Trautwein of the EVT Marketing Group explains, the incentive industry has two facets to it: all the exciting, glittering, rewarding recognition elements, and the facet that the true incentive practitioner works in: the development of a strategic approach for achieving core objectives within an organisation. This includes creating measurement systems and driving behaviour to achieve the ultimate reward, whatever that may be.
“Not everyone wants to jump out of an aeroplane,” she says.
“People are motivated by their reasons not yours. Some people might want a weekend away – a honeymoon revisited – while others might want to trip the light fantastic. If it’s a young generation they might be more attracted to some sort of experiential activity. We had one gentleman in a program we did once who wanted to learn how to build model train engines. He loved trains.
“It’s all about who your target market is; and it’s also about utilising your budgets best; we design the rewards to fit the budget.
“It’s also about income capacity. If you have someone earning $200,000 a year they are going to be interested in something that is a little bit different to someone who is earning $35,000 a year.”
But she’s quick to explain that people don’t just work harder simply for rewards.
“They do it for recognition – they want to achieve for their own reasons. By putting together a proper, strategic program it gives them a platform to perform.”
Ms Trautwein says EVT often comes across companies who say they have run a program but it hasn’t worked.
“And then, when you drill down to find out what didn’t work, you’re told, `oh well, we offered these great rewards, we put them on the internet, but we didn’t get much uptake.’ And part of the reason for that is that it’s not a strategic thing it’s just a reward system without the guts; without the key obtainable objectives for the individual – nothing is really driving the behaviour.
“The reality is it’s all about sitting down with each individual company and asking them what do you want to achieve? We’re in there to improve people’s performance.”
 Recognition and reward
Everybody is motivated by different things. Some people want more money, some people want an annual holiday, some people want the latest plasma television. And as Ms Trautwein adds, some people are motivated to be recognised for the work they put in.
“One of the hardest things in business is that when you work in large companies with variable management in there people – individuals - get lost in the mire. Our programs provide them with the opportunity outside the traditional space to really show their capabilities and to be recognised because they are measurable.
“The other thing that we do is by driving the behaviour we run educational components through our programs. We’re actually developing people. They become a business tool. People become motivated because they know that the work they do will be recognised, and they see they may have an opportunity to move up the corporate ladder [once their efforts are recognised].”
Ms Trautwein believes incentives are suitable for any market.
“As long as the program is designed correctly, and is measurable, and the measurability is accurate, not subjective, then you can utilise incentives in any industry and for any application.”
Visit www.evtmrktgroup.com for further information.
The Motivation & Incentive Expo, held at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre in July, attracted 87 exhibitors representing brand merchandise, travel and experiential rewards, gift cards and performance improvement solutions, and had 1162 registered buyers.
Event producer and managing director of show organisers, Wakamo Business Media, Mark Harvey, said he was delighted with the final wash up of the inaugural event.
“We set out to create a new event that reached a distinctly different type of buyer to any other event in Australia,” he said.
“Our focus from day one was to deliver high quality, hard to reach buyers of performance improvement solutions, recognition awards and corporate gifts. Based not only the feedback from exhibitors, but also the large number of companies who re-signed at the expo for next year’s event, I think we well and truly achieved our goal.”
Wakamo has released an exhibition report which highlights, among other things, just how valuable the motivation and incentive industry is in Australia.
According to the report $2.1 billion was visitors’ combined expenditure on incentive programs, rewards and incentive travel/meetings in 2007. Just over 30 per cent of visitors said they intended to increase their spend on incentives in 2008.
Another interesting statistic was that 58 per cent of visitors did not currently operate an incentive program, and 67 per cent planned to implement a program within the next 12 months.
Following the success of the inaugural event, a number of key developments have been announced for the 2008 exhibition including an enhanced education program (two free seminar stages and two new conferences), increased exhibition space to accommodate 150 plus exhibitors, and a stronger push into the meetings and travel sector.
“2008 is going to be a much bigger event with many new initiatives that will see the rebranded show firmly position itself as the marketplace for incentive marketing in Australasia,” Mr Harvey said.
“Research conducted among visitors at this year’s event provided strong evidence that we need to strengthen the travel component of the show.
“Meetings and travel are key components to motivating and rewarding staff, channel partners and customers so it’s important we have plenty of options available on the show floor for visitors when it comes to this sector. We didn’t have much travel or meeting content in the inaugural event however this will change moving forward.”
To be held at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre on June 3 and 4, 2008, the event will be rebranded the Incentive Show. The 2008 Incentive Show Exhibitors Prospectus is now available by contacting Wakamo Business Media on 1300 733 524 or by email mh@wakamo.com
Some people might work night and day for the chance to earn a trip to Vanuatu, whereas the stay-at-home gardening fiend would be thinking only in terms of how many plants will die in their absence. The chance to tandem sky-dive might thrill Joe in sales, but petrify Joanne at your best performing dealership.
Today’s workforce is an eclectic mix: we have 25 year old Generation Ys working alongside Baby Boomers, Australian-born-and-bred people alongside recent immigrants, parents who work part time in order to accommodate quality family time alongside workaholic up-and-comers.
Motivating this mix of people takes time, analysis and planning. If your objective is to have a strongly performing team, and the way you do that is with incentive programs, you need to make sure you offer something to appeal to each of the different facets of your workforce.
The first thing to do is to assemble some demographic details about those you are trying to motivate. If everyone is an employee, you probably have details available from your human resources department. If you are extending a rewards program to channel partners, you may have to do further research. You could choose to do this yourself through a phone or online survey, or have someone else survey people on your behalf. Either way, you are looking to assemble details about:
• Age
• Gender
• Living location (regional or metropolitan)
• Family situation (single, living with family, living with a partner, living with young children, and so on)
• Cultural and religious background
Note that you need to be extremely sensitive in the way you gather this information and the purposes for which you use it. Be aware of anti-discrimination legislation. Any information offered to help you formulate a rewards program should be offered voluntarily. It is preferable to also gather the information anonymously.
As part of such a survey, you might also choose to gather some information about people’s likes and dislikes. There are a number of approaches you can take to this.
• You can offer a set of suggested rewards, which you ask people to number in order of preference.
• You might choose to have an open section in which people can make suggestions about what they would like to see in a rewards program. The answers to this section may surprise you, and help you to think outside your existing mindset.
• Offer a fun set of comparisons for people to circle their choice: Hot air balloon or Grand Prix tickets? Ferrari sportscar for the weekend or Segue people mover? Tropical island or skiing weekend?
To cater for the variety of people you want to reward, you might choose to have a set of rewards from which people can choose their preference.
There are ways to simplify the management of portfolios of rewards. One way is to use a service that offers online management, simplifying the processes of communicating with and reporting to participants. Today’s web-based incentive program management tools let participants check their current status, view the rewards open to them, and even redeem their rewards online. Automatic fulfilment takes the grunt work away from your internal payroll or human resources staff, who can concentrate on other strategic initiatives. From the manager’s perspective, online services are cheaper than extensive printing and mailing, and let you quickly put together and promote a program. Most tools allow for customisation of the appearance, to match your corporate identity or incentive program’s theme. Article supplied by www.MotivationBiz.com.
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This personal touch is said to be an experience that is remembered for years to come, and Maui Jim can cater to domestic or international events with pricing for almost any budget.
Maui Jim Sunglasses and its personalised fitting program is proving very popular in the conference/incentive industry. During the past several months the company has had the pleasure of working with many Australian companies in destinations such as Cambodia and Hong Kong, as well as in Australia.
After such a successful start to the year Maui Jim is proud to announce the arrival of its 2007 fashion styles. They go all out with smooth, sleek curves and are perfect for those who demand high performance wrapped in oversized high style.
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