When people contemplate adding an incentive program to a workforce or learning environment, they should determine several things. First, people should have a clear goal of the behavior they want to encourage. They need to also have a sense of what type of incentives they’ll offer when employees achieve set goals.

For instance, a sales manager wants to see each sales representative increase their sales by 20%. The manager has to decide how to offer an incentive that might work. This could be money, a trip for two someplace special, tickets to a fabulous concert, or many other things. A smart manager might introduce this incentive with a company lunch or with training aimed at getting salespeople to increase their sales. Since 20% is a large goal, the manager could also set lower goals with smaller prizes so that he encourages each employee to do his/her best in improving performance, and makes more employees happy because more of them would “win” an incentive prize.

There are plenty of incentive program types in schools too. Teachers can give small rewards for increased reading, strong grades, and citizenship or for many other things. As with the managing sales director, the teacher has to sell an incentive program as something special that makes students desire earning it. Since the rewards are usually smaller, the teacher may actually have the larger job selling such a program. He or she must also be more sensitive to the issue that lower performing students in the class may not be able to bring performance up to a level that would earn any incentives offered.

For example, when employees are happy and content, they will have a better disposition. Obviously this is helpful for workers that are involved with customers since they will be more likely to have patience with the clients and to go the extra mile in order to ensure happiness on the part of the clients. Even better, the morale and disposition of the co-workers may actually enable them to work better as a team, together. This means that when one person needs help, instead of ignoring that individual’s problems and making sure that they look out for themselves, other co-workers may chip in and try to help that person, which would allow the company to work more as a team which is typically more successful than everyone being concerned on with their own well being.

The incentive programs that are implemented may also enable a company to improve communication between the different co-workers and levels of management. This helps to ensure that when a problem comes up, the company as a whole is more inclined to address the issue. If workers are too concerned with what others will think of them or how others will react that they may try to fix the problem on their own and end up doing more harm than good. Increased communication will be beneficial in many different areas of the workplace. In addition, co-workers may begin to feel more like friends as opposed to individuals that work together and have nothing in common. Many business owners will even find that it feels good to reward their employees and that it is important not to take workers for granted in any market or in any capacity. Employee incentive programs will help with all of these issues.

Management then needs to review what the employees need to do more of, less of, or what needs to be totally changed. For example, the service staff might be double entering data because of antiquated procedures. Or perhaps CSRs are not delegating follow up calls for claims to CSR assistants.

The next step is to assess the behaviors, tasks and decision-making actions that the employees can control and that management wants to encourage or discourage. Management can check whether CSRs are still double entering data, reviewing renewals in a timely fashion, or delegating follow-up calls to assistants. A plan can blend the behavior with an appropriate reward.

Participants track their progress and redeem their points for gifts and travel from one of the largest selections in the industry through Amazon.com and other name brand award providers. Reducing your costs by offering 25-30% more buying power.

* Enrollment and participation management
* Program and performance assessment
* Tax Reporting
* Management and tracking of multiple programs and performance criteria
* Comparative analysis of program’s effectiveness
* Real-time recognition of outstanding performance
* One of the most comprehensive selection of awards
* Full account history with congratulatory notes for participants to check 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
* Effective and easy to use communication tools — Bulletin Boards, Pop Ups and Personal Congratulatory Notes
* Simple administrative tool (easy administration)
* Budget breakdowns and reporting
* Quiz templates and reporting tools for easy testing of participants’ knowledge
* Online games to generate enthusiasm and participation

Taico® Incentive Services has been helping companies just like yours achieve and surpass their business goals. Providing Incentive Technology, Performance Management, Communications, and the most extensive Rewards for over 25 years!

Communication is the Key

Now you can communicate with your target audience, one person at a time or to the entire group. Offer special promotions, send email blasts, create your own customized pop-ups and bulletin boards. Plus capture data and interact with your participants 24/7.

With IncentiWeb® you can measure results in a way never before possible.

Instant email participant communication
Congratulatory email and Online messages to all or a “targeted” group of participants
Online Bulletin Board and instant messaging to motivate and communicate with participants
Templates to create pop-up announcements

Pop-up and Bulletin Board features are a built-in way to announce a new product, launch a program while maintaining the “look” of your site.

Managers who prioritize employee recognition understand the power of recognition. They know that employee recognition is not just a nice thing to do for people. Employee recognition is a communication tool that reinforces and rewards the most important outcomes people create for your business.

When you recognize people effectively, you reinforce, with your chosen means of recognition, the actions and behaviors you most want to see people repeat. An effective employee recognition system is simple, immediate, and powerfully reinforcing. Employees feel cared about and appreciated. It may seem simplistic, but people who feel recognized and cared about produce more and better work.

A leader of employees makes other people feel important and appreciated. The leader excels at creating opportunities to provide rewards, recognition and thanks to his or her staff. A leader creates a work environment in which people feel important and appreciated.

Want to Kick Employee Recognition Up a Notch?

You can reinforce powerfully the recognition you provide in these ways.

• Write out the recognition, what the employee did, why it was important, and how the actions served your organization. Give a copy of the letter to the employee and to the department head or CEO, depending on the size of your company. Place a copy in the employee’s file.
• Write a personal note to the employee. Perhaps have your supervisor sign it, too. Photocopy the note and place the recognition in the employee’s file.
• Accompany the verbal recognition with a gift. Engraved plaques, merchandise that carries the company logo, even certificates of appreciation reinforce the employee recognition.
• Everyone likes cash or the equivalent in gift cards, gift certificates, and checks. If you use a consumable form of employee recognition, accompany the cash with a note or letter. When the money has been spent, you want the employee to remember the recognition.
• Present the recognition publicly, at an employee meeting, for example. Even if the employee is uncomfortable with publicity, it is important for the other employees to know that employees are receiving recognition.

Conclusion and More Information About Employee Recognition

A simple “thank you” counts as employee recognition. But, you can also make employee recognition as elaborate as your imagination can conceive. Recognition is not a scarce resource. You can’t use it up or run out of it. No budget is too small to afford employee recognition. For increased employee satisfaction, bring on lots of employee recognition.

In reality, people may come and go in a certain organization. Every company is faced with unending series of employee resignation or dismissal announcements. Whether the grounds for such cases is based on one’s search for greener pastures or for more secured futures, nobody can dismiss the fact that these events can still create a great impact on the operational mode of businesses.

So what is the bottom line of all these mess? Aside from full compensation benefits for the employees, it is best to identify achievements and skills through incentive programs.

Incentive programs are considered as the great-pound brute of retention. In fact, experts say that giving incentive programs can absolutely motivate people to work harder and deliver better results.

Incentive programs are obviously the most prevailing weapon in the industry. Incentive programs when spread evenly in a certain group of employees may create confusion, insult, and preconceived notion. Of course, top performers would feel snubbed because others were given the same amount of incentive even if they have not exerted the same effort like they did.

Moreover, people who have not yet proven their worth to receive such incentive programs will have an impression than they too can be rewarded just by showing up.

The idea of a true and efficient incentive program should focus more on distinguished performance, free from biased-treatment and unscrupulous evaluation. Effective incentive programs should be based individual achievements.

It is also important that employees should know how they were rated and why such incentive programs were given. In this way, employees can clearly assess the things that they can do to improve their performance, which will result to greater incentives.

In companies where employee’s incentive programs moves in fundamental lockstep, a mechanical and influential deterrent can be created. On the other hand, really gratifying carrying out of functions obtains the reverse result by increasing the performance level and instigating others to go beyond the line. This will be triggered more by various incentive programs.

Moreover, incentive programs should encourage employees to develop full concern for the company. These programs should not make them see rewards as forms of greed but more as a type of connection that will link the employee to his organization.

Business experts say that giving out incentive programs will be totally useless if the employee will not develop concern for the company.

With this, incentive programs should not focus more on materialistic rewards, such as money and other tangible items. Incentive programs could go as far as giving more challenging tasks and convenience in their work environment.

Incentive programs can be as diverse as they can be. The most important factor to remember here is that when implementing incentive programs, the management should be able to create a better working environment for everybody and achieve the highest standards of employee retention to foster stable operation.

Keep in mind that frequent resignation and dismissal of employees can be devastating. Hence, incentive programs can balance everything and maintain quality people.

Incentives should reward behaviors that prevent injury by eliminating unsafe work practices. Reward employees who achieve “zero accidents,” but be sure to use a broad definition of accident (such as one that would cause an employee to miss time on the job) so that employees do not try to cover up minor injuries in order to keep their zero accident rating. Once the behaviors to be rewarded are identified, then determine allocation of awards (individual, department, or companywide).

To make an incentive program really work, several things must be done. First, the incentives must be an ongoing element of the workplace. One-time incentive programs tend to get employees interested for a short time, then cause them to lose interest and fall back into bad habits once the period has passed. Second, meaningful incentives should be chosen. Many experts believe that non-cash incentives can be most effective, warning that under cash-based reward systems, employees too often pocket the cash and forget about the ongoing message. Some companies do believe that cash works best, while others feel using cash sends people the wrong message by paying them extra for practices that they should already be doing. Good examples of non-cash incentives include recognition awards, token gifts that build morale, customized items (clothing, for example), and, most effective of all, professional advancement. Finally, goals and results must be clearly communicated to employees at every step of the process.

Small business owners should not be scared of the costs associated with running an incentive program. Even if the program costs several thousand dollars annually, many economists and business experts contend that the expense is insignificant compared to the productivity lost as a result of poor safety practices.