What makes a good incentive

While many incentive programs are successful, many others fall short of their goal. The question, then, is what separates the two. What makes an incentive program succeed? Every incentive program must have a clearly-defined vision. There are many different reasons to implement an incentive program. Many companies hope to increase productivity by a certain percentage, or reach a specific sales goal. Other business look to increase employee loyalty or reduce employee turn-over.

Whatever it is, you must establish your vision before you can choose the right incentive program. The details of your program, the rewards you choose, and the requirements for winning will all be shaped by your end goal. In order for employees to be motivated they must feel that their goal is attainable.

To use an example outside of the business world, consider a student trying to improve their GPA. They will be discouraged rather than motivated. Similarly, an unattainable goal in incentive programs will only create frustration and discouragement.

Employees need to feel that hard work could pay off. Select goals that are realistic enough to attain, but hard enough to make someone work to get them. Confusion is always an enemy of success. Ongoing monitoring of program results is also a key component to any sales incentive program. Look for sales incentive program partners who will conduct ongoing monitoring of your program to highlight positives and negatives all along the way.

Are certain areas of your organization underachieving? Perhaps more attention needs to be given to ensure they understand the program and know the rules to participate. Is there overachievement among some teams? Celebrate these successes to encourage others to follow suit. They can be consultants that use modeling and analysis to help you achieve a high ROI.

What makes a good partner when creating your sales incentive program? This might include a team goal for a department, location, or business unit. Spurt Program. This is frequently used in sales to drive activity during a seasonally slow period or to move inventory of a specific product.

Meetings and Events. This is common for strategic planning sessions and all-employee kick-off events. Individual Travel. This is typically for a top-performer program and can be used with employee recognition programs.

Target the Audience Similar to a marketing plan or a training plan, your incentive plan needs to be targeted to a specific audience. A top-performer sales incentive may be a year-long program and end with a grand trip to Hawaii for the winners. A call center incentive targeting customer service reps may be based on call metrics for a week or a month, include posters, stickers and flyers, and end with a pizza party and new company logoed jackets.

A car dealership incentive may be tied to customer survey scores evaluated quarterly, with all communications going through an app, and employees accumulating points to redeem in an online catalog. Offer Appealing Rewards When many employers hear "incentive program," they automatically think "cash bonuses," however, a lump sum doesn't always have to be the reward for good work. Align with Your Culture Whether the program is company-wide or department-specific, the culture needs to support the activities of the team working towards the goals.

Incorporate Training What if employees are already working very hard every day? During a safety incentive to reach X of days with zero incidents, the company should reassign courses on forklift safety, electrical safety, ladder safety, PPE, etc.

A rookie salesperson may look for courses on handling objections. Your business development team may want to revisit videos on leaving voicemail messages that get returned or questions to ask in a discovery call. Customer service reps may want to refresh their skills in handling angry callers.

Hospitality employees wanting to increase survey scores may want to rewatch courses about front of the house check-in procedures, etiquette, and presentation. What Makes a Good Incentive Plan? Employees not motivated to take their training because they're "too busy"? Check out this blog for tips on how to motivate your employees to make time for training. Discover how to reach your employees where they are and get them excited about upcoming training with our blog on how to promote training courses to employees.

Learn when self-directed learning is right for corporate training and development in this blog. While these are extremely important topics, we tend to miss one key element — how to market the program to employees a. If we want our incentive program to run smoothly, our participants need a clear understanding of the details. Tips to sharing the incentive program with the participants:. Internal communication is vital for an effective and successful incentive program.

Without it, confusion and apathy will run rampant, participants will lack motivation, and the program will be prone to failure. Generating quality communication by involving participants and offering a simple and refined message makes a big difference. If we want a good incentive program, clear internal communication is vital. A Sixty Two years old adhesives giant entered Indian market in late In Indian division they had over Employees, 25 product groups a A Leading manufacturer of ropes and nets that has been there in the market since and serving various sectors like Marine and Shipping; Fishi A baby product manufacturing company established in year with over employees was looking for a new SFA vendor as their basic needs were The emerging health trend and changi A global medical product and technology company with presence in over countries throughout the world and leading market positions in wound th The brand is globally recognized across its Industry leading products i