Archive for the Incentive Category

And what they can teach us about reward and recognition.

If you’re familiar with the employee recognition space at all, you will be familiar with the ‘cash vs. tangible reward’ argument.

For those of you that are not familiar, the argument goes something like this. If a company formally recognizes an employee for whatever reason – great attitude, team player, sales targets met, innovation, and so on – the reward should be tangible rather than cash. Cash, it is claimed, will just be subsumed into the employees’ personal cash flow and when they spend it, be it on a Starbucks coffee, gas for the car or the weekly groceries, they are unlikely to associate the purchase with being recognized. (more…)

What’s that got to do with motivation?

There was a recent report from the United Nations that stated that the number of cell phone subscribers in the world is just about to pass 5 billion. By their reckoning, more people will have a cell phone than have access to clean sanitation.

What does that tell us about the motivation of human beings? In all my years of devising reward, recognition and incentive programs, I have always urged clients to think about what I call the “Three A’s” when it comes to establishing what is going to motivate your audience. (more…)