The
incentive industry, or motivation industry, or award industry (call it what you
want) has been discussing all the reasons why you should implement a non-cash
employee award program for years. Long
before the term employee engagement became so fashionable, they were extolling the benefits of recognizing and awarding employees for their performance.
The
incentive industry has been trying to prove a hard dollar ROI for these types
of programs since the beginning. Why,
simply because that’s what the financial management wanted to see before they
would approve the budgets for the awards.
So the industry scrambled around for years and spent millions on
research just to prove that hypothesis.
Sorry,
in all we’ve seen, you can’t draw a straight line from giving an employee a $50
gift card for superior performance and the fact that what they did resulted in
$127 to the bottom line. Sure it can be part of it, but there are too many
pieces to the profit puzzle interconnected with employee awards to show the
empirical evidence.
So
stop doing it! As Paul Hebert, a friend
and extremely knowledgeable in the awards industry and enlightened contributor
on “Fistful of Talent” said not so long ago…
“If you’re looking for business rationale
to recognize people in your organization, you’re doing it wrong.”
Start
looking at employee recognition as something other than a way to give your
employees more stuff and start looking at it as something to do because it
simply the right thing to do. It makes
sense, it does engage your employees, it does make them feel good, it does keep
them motivated and on the job and they will stay with your company longer than
the disgruntled employees who won’t.
Have
you ever noticed an employee from a supplier you work with, or service person
in a retail store, or the receptionist or nurse in your doctor’s office, or
teller or assistant manager in your bank, that was always smiling and genuinely
ready to provide you with great service?
Sure you have. And when you did,
did you thank them for their service, or remark on how nice they were or how
well they performed? Did you ask them if
they were ever thanked and rewarded for their service by their management? You might be surprised at their answer. Some industry research would indicate that at
least 50% probably weren’t.
If
your management won’t take the time to recognize good performance it’s a shame,
too many don’t. But if you want to
retain and grow your best employees you should, if not someone else surely
will.
As
Paul Hebert says…
”don’t worry about the ROI…worry about the
ROH…the return on humanity.”
For
more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
