There
are legions of stories in the incentive industry of programs gone bad, some
very bad, some that destroyed careers, fiscal years, channel reputations or
even lives. Many did not achieve the
objectives outlined or over achieved them and budgets skyrocketed out of control.
Still others were just embarrassing like using alcohol to motivate salespeople
(some of whom were recovering alcoholics) or sweets to diabetics…you get the
point.
Recent
research conducted by the Incentive Research Foundation found that while the
two thirds of the companies used outside suppliers for awards, less than half
looked to suppliers for expertise in the best ways to recognize or motivate
participants. Why?
You can’t learn incentives in college like
marketing or communications, or advertising.
It’s not taught. Yet it is a
subject that uses upwards of $100 billion in corporate budgets annually in all
its forms. A great incentive/motivation
program requires the combination of sound research, skill training, dynamic
communications, a complete award offering the information technology to run it
and professional analytics to tweek it and make it effective.
If you interested in how incentive have
gone wrong, Google “Incentives and the BBC”, or Lehman Brothers, or Well Fargo,
or the teachers union in Atlanta about the “No Child Left Behind Act.” Certainly all of these programs started with
good intentions, but good intentions don’t make up for poor design planning.
Most companies have marketing
communications departments, but when they want to undertake a multi-million
dollar corporate change they look to outside Marcom’s or their own advertising
company to lend a hand. But when it comes to incentives the majority of
companies think they can do it themselves.
But when you do remember that there are many things that can go wrong,
not the least of which is a program that spends lots of money and doesn’t
achieve results. Basedon our experience
that happens up to 50% of the time.
For
more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
