Online Incentive Programs Part IV

What Awards To Use?

At the heart of any incentive or recognition award system are the awards that you will use to motivate your participants to improve their performance. A great deal of time and money is spent in the research, planning, design and implementation of a web-based system. To get the best results from your system, make sure you spend some time considering what types of awards to use. In your selection process check to see if the supplier is award neutral, if they will populate the online award mall with anything you think will motivate your participants.

In today’s modern workforce there is an incredible diversity. Workers span generations, are of all races, of all religions and cultures. Employees are more aware today of the need to balance their work and life experience. They have become customer-centric in how and where they shop. Armed with the information available on the internet, they are more demanding. Choice in their everyday life has become the rule not the exception and they are not content when the choices they receive don’t parallel their own lifestyle.

The awards you provide for your participants should be as diverse as they are. With a web-based solution, this is easier to do than ever before, so don’t settle for systems that are narrow in their focus of what award to use. The traditional merchandise catalogs of the past are a good place to start, but they are by no means the only award that should be considered. If you find that a company is marketing their system at extremely low cost (or possibly even no cost) the entire profitability for that supplier will be hidden in the limited award portfolio that they offer. In these cases the cost of the awards can be far greater (often by 50% or more), than the cost of that same item at retail. In the long run, paying for the system and its maintenance will be a better value for you and your participants than having a system for low cost where your participants do not receive full value for your awards budget.

The multi-cultural and multi-generational workforce of today needs more choice to motivate them than the traditional merchandise selection used in the past. Don’t be fooled into thinking that all the other award options are “just like cash” and don’t provide the intrinsic value that you can get from a specific merchandise item. Intrinsic value of the item should come from the mind of the recipient, not the giver. Different generations, cultures etc, are motivated by different needs. If you want to capture their attention, let them have what motivates them.

Your web-based system makes it easy to include almost anything you feel will help you motivate and reward your employees. You can certainly include the traditional merchandise items, but consider other items as well such as gift cards, company identified merchandise, merchandise specials of the moment, your own company products (if appropriate), individual travel, vacation packages, life style awards, event ticketing, even company stock or charitable contributions. Work – Life programs are very exciting initiatives in many organizations; you may also want to consider including some of them as well.

If you have questions on the incentive awards industry, please feel free to ask My passion is to help clients run successful incentive award and recognition programs. Successful programs help many folks share in the success of their hard work.

Online incentive award programs can produce some great results and have become the best value in the industry!

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