Incentives For Your Employees

An incentive is defined by an Internet dictionary, as something that incites or tends to incite to action or greater effort, as a reward offered for increased productivity.  Everyone uses incentives in our everyday lives.  Youngsters get to watch TV after their homework is completed; teenagers get to drive the family car as long as their grades are good, and salesmen get a bonus check for surpassing specific goals.  Incentives are a great way to get people motivated, and can be used to have fun at the same time.

The PhoneSmart Secret Shop Department is using a remunerative incentive for January. A major problem for the trio in this department is that every month they have to coordinate about two dozen part-timers.  They have people who make mystery shop calls, evaluate calls, combine these two tasks and construct feedback shop calls, burn CDs, email/snail-mail reports to the clients, etc, etc.  Certain jobs obviously must be completed before others can begin.  The whole process is like a well-oiled machine, and when one cog is out of whack it causes a lot of problems on down the line.  And needless to say, with so many people involved every month there is at least one person that does not complete their responsibility in a timely manner, throwing everything off kilter.

So for January, they have enacted an incentive program.  Everyone whose assigned tasks are completed by a specific due date has his or her name put into a hat for a drawing.  The winner gets (drum roll, please!) a $20 gas card! 

Okay, it’s not much, but it’s still a lot of fun.  We have all been talking about it the whole month.  How we are going to buy this or that – or maybe even some gasoline! – With our winnings.  As of yesterday everyone had gotten their assignments turned in on time. 

The idea of getting entered into the contest for the prize has been a far more pleasant experience than being worried about something negative.  Getting this turned in later than Friday will my commissions being decreased? Or, will the manager put a write-up in my employee file? Or even worse, employees thinking that it makes no difference when they get things completed.  Having a POSITIVE motivational tool promotes a positive, motivated environment. 

Incentives, if used wisely, can be a great tool to help motivate employees to accomplish and maybe exceed certain goals.  Remember though, in order for any type of an incentive program to work, (whether it is a positive or negative reinforcement) management MUST follow through.  Otherwise, it is all a mute point.

There is already buzz around Secret Shop about next month having the prize being a $20 gift certificate to a restaurant for Valentine’s Day, so the winner can treat their sweetie.  Who knows, maybe in the future we will have a Pie-in-the-Face contest, where the winner gets to throw a pie in a manager’s face!  The possibilities are endless!!
 
And yes, the car is a little low on gas this week, in anticipation of winning the gas card. And which manager will get that pie in the face, hmmm.

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

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