If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. You might think your incentive strategy is working, but odds are, it could be working harder… When was the last time you evaluated your incentive strategy for its effectiveness? Have your financial/sales goals changed? Are you reaching them? Are your rewards enticing to your audience? Have you polled them recently? Is your incentive strategy designed to motivate more than just the same people every year? Now is the right time to assess your incentive program and here is why:
- Many incentive programs have been in place for a long time without any refreshing. According to the IRF, only 31% of companies work with external consultants to evaluate their programs while 81% believe external partners could ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ produce insight to improve program results.
- Corporate priorities and business needs can change dramatically, as we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, and a program’s metrics and business rules should change to reflect the current business climate.
- Many incentive programs have a very strong reward offer for the “top performers” but don’t offer enough to motivate “the middle.”
- In most sales audiences, the top performers who earn travel rewards tend to be repeat winners or come from the top 20% of the population; companies are often rewarding the same people year after year.
- Many programs don’t do enough to promote incremental growth; they have become recognition programs instead of true incentives.
- Some programs are not measured year over year to determine if they are providing an impact on the business and positive financial returns (ROI).
- In the age of electronic communications, there’s never enough marketing to keep programs top-of-mind.
- Most programs focus only on financial results but don’t place enough emphasis on the “steps to the sale” and the other behaviors that lead to success.
- Taking a close look at the performance data for winners vs. non-winners, and hearing the voice of your people, can lead to some surprising findings.
Have we convinced you yet? Times are changing; your employees and their needs are changing; your incentive strategy needs to change with them! We can help.
