Incentive 101: The Why
Do your employees see their workplace as nothing more than a monthly paycheck, and are you struggling to reach certain goals? Perhaps what you need is an incentive for your employees to work more effective and efficient to meet a common goal, while creating a healthy corporate culture.
The coming weeks we want to talk about Incentives: Why do incentives work, How to make a great Incentive Travel Program, and What is the ROI? This week we start by talking about “The Why – Why do incentives work”
Incentive 102: The How (to build a Great Travel Program)
Incentive 103: The What (is the ROI)
Simple Theory of Motivation
Psychologists and economists have for many years analyzed how to minimize/maximize work through different factors in the workplace. Frederick Herzberg discovered in the late 50s that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction acted independently of each other. In brief, there are two factors that affect motivation:
Hygiene – Good salary, job security, work hours, work conditions, fringe benefits, status, vacations; these are factors that cause No Dissatisfaction. It is called hygiene because, without proper maintenance, your workforce will soon “stink”
Motivators – Stimulating work, recognition, responsibility, career advancement, personal growth, job interest, incentives; these are factors whose presence motivates employees to turn up their performance level
As the factors differ from each other, they cannot be treated as opposites. Satisfaction is not the opposite of dissatisfaction, but rather is the opposite of no satisfaction – a neutral state. Remember to eliminate all factors that cause dissatisfaction before moving on to motivating factors.
Why do incentives work?
An incentive is something that motivates an individual to do something different. Corporate incentives are defined as: “a motivational tool to enhance productivity or achieve business objectives in which participants earn the reward based on a specific level of achievement set forth by management”. An incentive is a motivator that affects the behaviour of those qualified for the incentive, by giving qualifiers recognition for their effort, when goals and objectives, set forth by the company, are met or exceeded.
Incentives work because it is not something decided by luck. Incentives are not something you win, but rather something you earn. Therefore, be careful announcing to employees can win an incentive. It will make it sound like the winners were chosen based on their relationship with management, and not for their performance. Earners work hard, dedicate resources, and experience a lot of small wins to eventually earn the ultimate incentive reward. All the small wins, stimulating work and the possibility for recognition is an incredible motivational booster.
Incentive Rewards
What should be the reward for the earners? Selecting an appropriate reward as the incentive is vital to any company that wishes to use incentives as a motivator. There are low impact incentives, cash, gift cards, merchandise, and high impact incentives, tours, travels, experimental incentives whose impact is much bigger and lasts as a motivator for much longer – they can even positively affect your organization’s culture.
Hadler DMC Scandinavia specializes in high impact incentives, where incentive participants are left with an impression of recognition, personal growth, and many magical moments richer. Every incentive is created to deliver Out-Of-The-Box experiences.
