U.S. business spends billions annually to rev up workers. In the travel incentive business alone, there are now thousands of service companies that develop and/or run trips to reward employees, as opposed to a few hundred companies a decade ago.
What methods are most used? How can you choose and implement a motivational program that will match your needs and get results? Matt S. Walton III is a managing principal in Los Angeles for Sibson & Co. Inc. , a management consulting firm based in Princeton, NJ that develops compensation and incentive programs. He describes the most common types of programs and offers insights and guidelines:
- Rewards. Trips, televisions, cash—all can be powerful incentives to pump up performance and boost profits. “Reward programs are especially effective when used with sales and customer service representatives,” says Walton. He cautions that, for the reward to be meaningful, it should relate to specific performance measures established in advance. For example, bank personnel might be offered a reward for getting a certain number of customers to buy a CD within a 30-day period. ..more
