What’s wrong with Online Points Bank Account Type Award Programs?

Actually, nothing. As I’ve said on many occasions I believe that the online points bank account type programs are the best type of reward system you can use to motivate and recognize improved performance on a continuous basis. Of course this is dependent on knowing what you’re doing, how to use them properly, how to use them to effectively communicate, administer, measure and feedback performance. And lastly, do you have the right kinds of awards built into your award malls?

In my consulting capacity I’ve reviewed many of these programs and most have all the flexibility necessary to be successful. The software for them has evolved to make them easy to implement and do just about anything you need to do. While the measurement and analytical feature is relatively nonexistent, the majority of clients are averse to measuring recognition or incentive programs anyway, but that’s another story in itself.

So is there anything really wrong with them? From a feature standpoint, no, but from a practical standpoint absolutely. Without demeaning those nice folks who put them together, from what I have seen I would venture an educated guess that most are not used the way they were intended. Here are some things I’ve witnessed:

1. The vast majority does not take advantage of even half of the features offered; they use one or two and that’s it. It’s like purchasing a car with every extra possible and then just driving it to the grocery store once a week.

2. Most of these programs are woefully underfunded. They think because they’ve got a terrific platform that they can get by with a budget of $25 to $50 per person for awards on an annual basis to achieve massive corporate objectives. Just ask yourself, would you change your behavior and improve your performance for $5 a month? I didn’t think so.

3. They are rarely measured for success or an ROI, leaving executive management to completely lose sight of what the program is supposed to accomplish, and therefore are easily eliminated in bad economic times

4. The have limited executive support. There can be a lot of rah, rah at the beginning but that can dissipate rapidly as the pressing business problems of the day overtake the need to recognize performance.

5. They rarely take advantage of implementing different award programs across department or divisional lines. Each separate function zealously guards their own internal budgets and does “what they want to do for themselves as they are “different from anyone else.”

6. The program may have been designed to capture and combine various corporate rewards budget, but most often that doesn’t happen. Employees are then left to wonder why they are being pulled here and there by a wellness program rewarding one thing, and safety program rewarding something else, while overall recognition programs have yet again another set of rules and awards.

7. The rewards offered are not as inclusive as they should be. The internet allows companies to put virtually anything you can think of in the awards section, yet many of these programs only offer the same type of recognition awards that were offered to our parents and grandparents. That is mainly fostered by the vendors who are guarding their profit margins without consideration for the participants.

Bottom line? These programs can be phenomenal when used appropriately, and a grand waste of time and money when they aren’t.