Is There a “Sea Change” in Recognition Strategies?

A recent study by Baylor University suggests that employers who promote ethics should reward their employees who exhibit them.  They make the case that when you build the culture and reputation of the company from the inside out, and when employees rate the company highly as an ethical place to work, that it can promote a competitive edge. Along with this of course, you also need high quality products and services and a customer service attitude that second to none.

Is this really a “sea change” in how and why we should recognize our employees?  Is this much different from traditional strategies used to recognize employees using the companies “mission, vision and values”?  While company ethics has always been a fundamental precept of an organization, is it something that has taken center stage in your efforts at internal branding?  Or is ethics something that has just been “understood” as being a value, mentioned often but rarely defined as the fundamental building block of your company?

We have all seen where questionable company ethics, at whatever level, can destroy a company.  When employees don’t trust the management from the board room on down, when they see first-hand questionable customer dealings, when they see management looking like the three monkeys, ethics will erode.

This is a “sea change".  It is fundamentally a new focus on internal branding that will support your objectives and values. According to the study, when you tie the communications and training to honesty and respect and include it in employee awards and job performance evaluations, you can decrease turnover and improve performance.  Many companies are now looking at internal branding as a marriage between Marketing and HR with a more holistic approach that aligns corporate communications with all the elements that engage and inspire the employees.  Rewards should mirror that shift.

According to Baylor researcher Marlene Neill, Ph.D,

“If workers come to believe that an employer does not ‘walk the walk’ touted at orientations and in communications, they may decide that the company violated a psychological contract…That may lead to turnover, job dissatisfaction, distrust and reduced performance, despite good salaries, benefits and chances to advance.” 

The study offers the following Best Practices for including ethics in the entire onboarding process: 

• Employers should communicate ethics in a relevant way, such as employee testimonials and historical anecdotes. 
• Employers should review their core values to be sure they mesh with policies and reward systems. If not, they should make revisions. 
• Employers should review recruitment and orientation materials to include core values. 
• Employers should evaluate their ethics programs and see if they should add more resources, such as ethics audits or decision-making trees. 
• Employers should do routine surveys to see how employees rate the company’s performance in regards to core values. 
• Employees who model ethical behavior should be rewarded through positive job evaluations and awards programs.  

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Recognize Good Performance with an Award, not a Gift

                

This may seem like splitting hairs to some and just semantics to others, but an award for performing well and a gift typically have very different meanings to both the giver and the recipient.

What is often common to both rewards and gifts is “Thank You,” although there are times when thanks are not even mentioned for either.  A gift is something you give to someone you care about.  When you give a gift to someone you are not rewarding them for anything you’ve asked them to do, you’re simply adding generosity to “thanks” in a meaningful way.  When you ask someone to improve on performance, and they do, they have earned an award. 

Everyone loves gifts for doing nothing other than being themselves.  Folks also take a great deal of pride in accomplishing something and being recognized for the achievement.  Gifts have no strings attached.  Recognition and incentive programs have lots of strings attached, some so sophisticated that they have to have computer programs to implement and sustain them. 

Incentive and recognition programs are all about changing behavior and producing results.  Without getting deep into the science and psychology of behavior modification, let’s just use this fundamental outline of the behavior model…

• Explain What You Want Someone to Do 
• Tell Them How to Do It
• Measure their Performance
• Provide a Positive Consequence upon Achievement
• The positive consequence you give them is an AWARD, it is certainly not a gift. 

Semantics?  We don’t think so.

If you want a real fun discussion, what is the difference between a reward and an award??  Many think it’s interchangeable, one a verb and one a noun and vice versa.  Webster defines it both ways, and I guess that’s good enough for us.  As long as you give us call when you want to reward some awards.  Then you can buy some gift card awards and present them as positive consequences for almost any objective.  

Thank you to Jennifer one of our most recent clients who asked the question that prompted this post.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Compare Cash or Non Cash as Employee Awards

Many people in the incentive industry will say that cash as an award doesn’t motivate as well as non-cash.  Frankly to say that cash doesn’t motivate is disingenuous. It is innately tied to our perceptions of reward as a universal motivator in this country.   It is easy to use, easy to distribute, and fulfills many of the needs that people have.  In difficult economic times it can certainly be very motivating. 

However, there are two sides to using cash as a motivator, and to understand when to use cash and when to use alternative awards requires an understanding of both sides.

Over the years we have spent a great deal of time researching cash and non cash as an employee or sales award and have come up with at least eight reasons why non cash may be a better choice when attempting to motivate and award employees. 

All too often when faced with the choice of choosing an award in a program designed to change behavior, the planners immediately go to cash thinking that it is the best way.  There are times, especially when the objective is to increase sales performance, when cash may not be the best award and in fact may not motivate at all.  In the least, research has shown that it takes 3 times more cash than other rewards to receive the same results.  That reason alone may be sufficient to investigate other reward options.

For a systematic and thorough review of the features and benefits of cash and non cash please click here.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

What Wellness Awards Do Companies Use?

Incentives “Safety & Wellness IQ” survey, the top rewards in wellness programs are:

Award Type	Included in Program
Retail & Bank Gift Cards	58.9%
Merchandise	41.2%
Cash	27.9%
Insurance Premium Reduction	25.5%
Individual Travel	10.3%
Experiential Awards (Spa treatments, etc.)	7.4%
Group Travel	4.4%

It’s no surprise that gift cards are the number one award group as the vast majority of individual budgets for these types of achievable objectives are less $50 to $100 ea.  And gift cards are by far the best value in that denomination of award especially considering the high margins on merchandise that tends to deflate the value and group or individual travel awards that are quite expensive.  

Communications and Technology Are Key

Communicating the range and complexity of health services can present a challenge. Individual motivation or apathy, sensitive health issues, and the cultural, geographic and demographic differences in your organization can all pose problems that need to be addressed when deciding on the communication strategy. Intranet portals, email campaigns, mobile devices, well thought out promotional items and the use of a host of Technology apps that speak to fitness can all help to make your program a success. 

Activity trackers and wearable devises such as FitBit and smart watches are simple ways for employees to measure performance against goals.  The American Council on Exercise reports that “people are 30 to 40 percent more likely to be active just by wearing a fitness tracker.” By using gift cards redeemable for Amazon and other online suppliers you can help offset the cost of activity trackers that can be expensive. Two top apps that unlock this ability for iPhones and Android devices are Argus and Pacer, both free, as are a host of others..

Safety programs for years have used triggers to motivate intended behaviors to avoid accidents.  Wearables are a great trigger.  The device on your wrist, the blinking light and vibration are physical reminders to change your behavior. 

The Future

When you add financial planning, life style education, stress management and life-stage management to the equation, you move into the future from the wellness of the past to the entire well-being of the employee in the future.  With a wellness program designed to change every day habits and reinforce improvement, these holistic well-being programs can help improve business outcomes like productivity and employee engagement, essentially the health of the business. 

 

Companies that have seen measurable success know that these wellness programs take time to show results.  They are long term objectives with very positive long term consequences. 

There is abundant evidence to support the return on investment evident in the wellness programs of today.  A quick search of the net will provide many.  How is your wellness effort going? 

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net