Incentives and Recognition Can Drive Recovery and Growth 

Introduction 

As a leader in your organization, you have to precisely manage every effective resource as you weather difficult market situations and strive to regain higher levels of growth and profit.  

Incentive and recognition programs are powerful tools when they operate on and reinforce the principles of effective leadership: 

 

While incentives and recognition are familiar to most in some form or other, they are frequently misunderstood in terms of their relative value and effective use. All too often, their results are disappointing or, even worse, indeterminate. 

Please note that we’re not discussing compensation here. Your compensation plan merely establishes the minimum benefit an employee can expect for meeting basic standards. Increased compensation, by itself, does little to drive improved performance. 

Top performers don’t reach that level solely for the money. They’re in it for what the money gives them – recognition, security, luxury, status – all of which are psychological and emotional rewards. Many others are just trying to make enough to meet their personal budget and perhaps have a little left over. (Interestingly, these people in the ”Great Middle” have the highest potential for improvement simply because there are so many ways they could work harder and smarter and so many untapped opportunities in front of them.) 

When you need exceptional results from your people, you need to offer exceptional rewards – something “extra”, something exciting! Several studies and decades of experience have shown conclusively that, dollar for dollar, non-cash performance improvement programs, by rewarding improvement with praise, recognition, merchandise and/or travel awards, produce far better results than cash. 

When properly conceived, designed and operated, performance improvement programs will deliver predictable, calculable increases in the results you obtain from a variety of target audiences. Distributors, dealers, customers, sales teams and non-sales employees all can be motivated to provide significant improvements in revenue and profits, productivity, morale and a variety of other important areas. 

A fundamental aspect of performance improvement programs is that there are no simple formulas or hard and fast rules. Endlessly studies of human motivation have produced one overall conclusion: While a few basic principles of human needs are somewhat consistent, their successful application varies widely from one situation to the next. Effective performance improvement programs are derived from a balance of art and science, both of which benefit greatly from experience.  

As in any other specialized business field, experts in performance improvement can be a vital addition to your leadership resources. 

The following information is based on decades of experience among MEI professionals who have designed and operated nearly every conceivable form of incentive and/or recognition program across a broad range of industries and for companies of all sizes.  

This is not intended as a complete “how-to” manual for performance improvement. Here we offer clarification on many aspects of incentive, recognition and performance improvement programs, including: 

  1. The differences between incentive and recognition programs
  2. The benefits of a complete performance improvement system
  3. Key elements of a performance improvement program
  4. Cash awards vs. non-cash awards
  5. Best practices and common mistakes
 

Whether you create and manage your performance improvement efforts in-house, allocate some elements to outside suppliers or utilize the services and expertise of a full-service performance improvement agency, the information and guidance offered here will help you determine when, where and how to use these tools and how to generate maximum results from your programs.

To view the details of this study and gain more information, please email Marketing Vice President Bob Graham.

E-Mail Bob Graham

bgraham@meiweb.com