I2I - Incentive Intelligence

Incentive & Reward Programs Need More UGC

Paul Hebert — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:12:27 +0000

UGC? What is UGC?

User. Generated. Content.

Old School – New School

In the days of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble incentive programs to drive more rock breaking at the quarry came with elaborate communication plans. Big budget program announcements (if you were doing a group travel program the budgets were almost obscene), monthly 4-color update mailings, teasers before the launch of the program, elaborate “pre-trip” (that’s what the industry calls the stuff you got if you earned the trip – badges, passport wallets, “while we are a way” refrigerator magnets) – all were the norm for programs.

All pretty expensive and all one-way communication. The goal was to get the audience excited and engaged in the program and keep them thinking about earning rewards.

All designed and written by the agency and the client. Every comma, verb, semi-colon reviewed and argued about before sending to the printer. Time consuming and expensive. Communications budgets could exceed 10% of the program budget.

But new school is different.

New school is flash emails, video sent via email, html emails with links back to the program site (which is really just and electronic version of the stuff we used to print and mail.) Incentive companies and clients took to e-delivery of program communications like a fat kid to a Twinkie.

A lot of reasons for that – no typos (oops… fixed it in real time – no lingering evidence… no reprints), no postage, no paper, and ultimately … a lot less cost.

And unfortunately… a lot less creativity and I’d suggest a lot less engagement.

Get Your Social On and Get Engagement

With the advent of e-delivery and online communication of program information I think we’ve lost a lot of what made these programs exciting an interesting. Now it is too easy to “not see” the communications. When you’re not online – you’re not seeing the “brochure” that used to sit on the corner of the desk. When you’re not in your email client you’re not seeing the progress report that used to be tacked on your bulletin board.

Getting the most out of your investment in rewards means we need to drive more communication about a program and we need to drive more engagement. Now I know companies aren’t going to go back to the Stone Age and start printing a bunch of stuff but there is a big way to get your audience more involved in the program – and at price points that make a ton of sense.

Enter UGC

I’m a bit surprised there isn’t more of this in the industry. It would seem a natural progression of program communications. When you have 60 billion videos watched each month on Youtube and 36 billion photos uploaded to Facebook I smell a trend.

So what does this have to do with your incentive and reward programs? Well…

Why don’t you allow participants in the program develop and drive the program communications?

Social Program Communications – A Snapshot

Hey… we live in a social world where we connect everyone to our twitter links and Pinterest posts. Why not just go with the flow here and get participants involved in the “social” side of program communications.

Here’s a short list of what I’d include (believe me – I got tons more…)

Pinterest for Award Goals

Let each program participant pick their goals and pin them to a board for the rest of the company to see (some sound psychological reasons for doing this.) Not into Pinterest? Then what about a simple drag and drop image to a flickr file that is shared by the participants.

Program Blog Instead of Static “Web Page”

Too many programs use static websites to announce and describe the program. What if you used WordPress to create a living, changing site driven by participant engagement? Allow participants to update their feelings about the program to a blog about the program. Let them link to their Facebook page and twitter accounts – put that stream on the website.
Get some managers and employees to talk about what they’re seeing the program do and what they are doing with the program. Again… the impact of communications from “people just like me” is much more powerful than some management wag telling you how great the program is.

Interactive Progress Reports

Let the participants go out and see how their performance stacks up with other – use sliders in little Apps that let them drag a slider to one product to another to see how increases would affect their award earnings.
Let them issue challenges to each other and then report progress on these challenges to the program population.

For Group Travel Programs – A Natural

Flickr file for all pics taken on the trip – share and download as you see fit. Had a great dinner with some new friends but didn’t snap a pic – but they did… upload and download baby.
Contests for funniest pic, most romantic, etc.
A blog specifically focused on the award trip. Updates on different restaurants on site… different activities… new relationships. You name it they will blog about it. It’s easy and I’m guessing there are a fair number of people now on these award trips that either have a tumblr account or use wordpress.com – blogging is not a foreign concept to many of these folks.
Hashtags for twitter while on site (and for those back home that might want to keep track of what’s going on.) Before the trip see if you can capture twitter handles and create a list of all attendees. Share the list and allow people to follow each other on site. I use twitter a lot at conferences to see where people are and what they are doing – why wouldn’t a group travel award have the same dynamic?
Set up a Youtube channel and let participants upload videos of what they are doing. Share and compare. Participants be sending to friends and family. Is there a better way to get people who didn’t go on the award trip excited about potentially going next time? Doubtful.

What Say You?

I’m just scratching the surface. Social communication and user generated content is here and now. Why not take advantage of it?

What do you think? How would you use UGC to amp up your reward program?

(See what I did just there – I asked for your input and then provided a way in the comments for you to give me ideas – which now everyone can see – so we all get smarter. That is UGC.)

Neato huh?

Goal Setting – @EvaRykr Nails It! (i2i-align.com)

Advice Worth Taking – 8 Non-Reward Things That Are Reward Things

Paul Hebert — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:58:44 +0000

Ran across Barry Ritholtz’s post “2011 Investment Mea Culpas” the other day (if you don’t read his blog, you should, go subscribe.)

He deals with investment advice and each year he takes a look back and highlights what he did right and what he’s going to change in the future. His post has nothing to do with incentives and rewards but as I read his list I thought – hmmmm… this list has a ton of applicability when thinking about how you’re going to design and operate an incentive and reward strategy.

So with apologies and attribution to Mr. Ritholz, below is my bastardization of his 8 things he learned and how you can/should incorporate his ideas into your reward planning process…

From The Post

Application With Your Incentive/Reward Strategy

1. Running Assets vs. Managing a Business: It may be obvious, but these are two very different skill sets. I first mentioned this last year – and though these are supposed to be mea culpas, I have to give kudos to a pair of outstanding hires: Josh and Anna. They make me better, and for that I am grateful.

Possible solution: Learning to be a business manager versus an asset manager means reaching outside your comfort zone, educating yourself, pushing into new areas. But the key: Find more outstanding people and hire them.”

Don’t think running an incentive and reward system is easy. You can’t do it well with a spreadsheet and email.

Get professional help – hire someone (that’s me ~grin.) You’d be surprised how much more efficient and effective your program will be when you enlist the right people with the skills and training to run your program. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It really doesn’t.

2. Confirmation Bias: I find myself reading more of the analysts whose current views I agree with and less of those whose views are opposite my own. Off the top of my head: Laksman Athushan, Jim Bianco, Michael Belkin and John Hussman. I need to find people whose macro views differ from mine as well as those whose market perspective is more aggressive than my own.

Possible solution: Read more of the folks I occasionally disagree with like Doug Kass, David Rosenberg, and others. Worry less about hunting for that nugget of info and more on the process others employ to challenge my own views.”

This is a big one for most of us. Don’t just look for reasons you’re right to want to use group travel. Talk to people who don’t agree with you. Listen to their logic and evaluate their point of view.

Dissenting opinions are great to challenge your thinking.

ACTIVELY seen evidence contrary to what you think.

3. Articulate policy and principles: I have a pretty firm set of beliefs when it comes to investing (seen in about 6,000 posts on the blog), but I have yet to put it down in a short format. This is a function of laziness and fear of ridicule.

Possible solution: DO IT. Break the beliefs down into 10 key principles, post them somewhere, and review annually. Forget about the opinions of the public and focus on what matters most to yourself and your process.”

Culture, culture, culture. If you can’t define it you can’t get it. However, as some of the commentators on the original blog warned – don’t turn it into a bumper sticker. Take the time to articulate what your values are.

Without articulated values employees will have to guess… and we often guess wrong.

4. Skepticism: I tend to disbelieve/distrust/ignore new sources of info. I have begun to grow cynical. This has led to unfairly dismissing new sources of information/analysis/commentary. The secret to being skeptical — and to Sturgeons Law — is to not reject 100% of everything that comes your way, just the 95% that is crap.

Possible solution: Consider the what ifs before rejecting something. Might this analyst be correct? Might their process work out? Be more generous with your attitude rather than being so dismissive.”

New information can be either boom or bust. As the post author says – take a step back. Consider it. Weigh it against what your experience tells you and then challenge that experience (see #2.)

Remember – at one time we thought incentives were good (~ another grin.)

5. Communication: A new issue for me, as I added lots more individual clients. I was very inefficient when I came to communicating with both new and prospective clients. Its not that I didn’t communicate; rather, it was haphazard and disorganized. Too many phone calls, too many calendar conflicts.

Possible solution: Organize: Create a system of communication to both existing and prospective clients. Use technology, conference calls, webinars to reach people in a more efficient way.”

Your program needs to be relevant and it needs to resonate with your audience. Use ALL available resources for communicating. You really can’t over-communicate when running a program when you do it right.

It’s work – but it will be worth it in the long run. Think of segmenting your participants and communicating differently to top performers versus lower performers.

I know… work again. But do it.

6. Time Management: An annual issue, although I did get better at it this year (see #1 above). Focus more on research, writing, and asset management –let the rest come to you.

Possible solution: Prioritize: Do less of what matters least; Work with a daily checklist to make sure things get finished; Focus.

Don’t run a program with 100 objectives. Prioritize. What’s most important? Which goal would potentially impact three others (think training)?

It’s better to run three programs focused on individual goals than one program focused on three goals.

Focus, focus, focus.

7. Clients: It is always a balancing act when dealing with clients. On the one hand, you cannot blow them off when they bring you concerns (its their money!). On the other hand, you cannot allow the investing public’s group mentality (or panic) to infect you. Further, we took some heat for calls that turned out to be correct, but in a few cases, took steps at the request of clients that lowered overall performance; that must stop.

Possible solution: Be proactive. Improve regular communication with all clients; Work on making sure they understand the process, our current thoughts, and where we are so as to avoid the 2nd guessing. Preempt the “My way or the highway” conversation proactively;”

See #5… And talk to your employees or your channel partners. Keep the conversation going.

8. Undercapitalized: I worked on several projects where capital was a major issue. This is something that is singularly important to any new entity. The bootstrapping approach seems to work in very rare circumstances where there is an immediate influx of revenue, but for moist start ups, it’s a pipedream. You cannot grow a business when the daily focus is raising money.

Possible solution: Steer away from firms that have too little capital. Make sure that the structure is appropriate. Avoid the classic undercapitalized but over enthusiastic founders.”

Don’t underfund your program.

Don’t overfund it either. There’s a Goldilocks number for your program. Run some what-ifs, do some extrapolations.

Do it right – or don’t do it.

Too much money get’s you unintended consequences.

Too little gets you nothing.

Incentives May Not Trump Culture (i2i-align.com)
Annual Incentives Programs Are Bad (i2i-align.com)
Solve Human Problems With Human Solutions (i2i-align.com)

Why Do We Love to Work at Companies Where We Don’t Have to Work?

Paul Hebert — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:12:18 +0000

Employee engagement on the web and in business articles has almost reached parody status. I’m waiting for a Stephen Colbert character to emerge as the voice of engagement. (Folks planning next season’s shows – I get some of the credit if you do this!) Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for employee engagement. I personally think it’s one of, if not the way for a company to develop long-term competitive differentiation. People are the means of production in today’s economy. Having the best people doing the best work is what you want and need.

Engaged employees are employees connected with the company’s mission and goals and vice versa. Or to say it a different way – engaged employees want to work.

So it struck me funny the other day when I read a post on Good Business entitled “The Top 20 Perks That Make Jobs Better.”

It’s one of those slide show thingies where you click to go the next slide with about one sentence of information on each one and an interminable amount of wait time between slides. You know – the kind of thing some of the big sites use to look cool when just a nice bulleted list would be better. But to my point… roughly half the “perks” that make for a great place to work were… things that allow employees not to work!

Intel gives 8 week sabbaticals after 7 years (why not make it 7 weeks or after 8 years just for symmetry purposes.)
Timberland gives paid paternity leave
Quicksilver allows time for surfing lessons during work hours
Pantagonia gives paid time off for working on a non-profit project
Netflix – unlimited vacation

Now, I know these are cool perks but doesn’t it sound funny to say that the reasons we love to work at a place is because of all the ways they give us to “not work?”

Why does it seem that employee engagement strategies many times end up being “take time away from work” strategies? Could you create a corporate culture where you don’t want to not work? Or would that just get all the “work-life balance” occupiers something else to complain about.

Nothing really profound in this post. Just a funny thought about engagement.

What do you think? I love my job. I do when I don’t have to.

I Like You – Here’s Some Money (i2i-align.com)
The Suggestion Box – RIP 1909 – 2011 (i2i-align.com)

Incentives May Not Trump Culture

Paul Hebert — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:41:14 +0000

Why did your incentive program fail? Maybe because you focused the program on “sacred values.”

Company/corporate culture is a hot discussion these days. From @zappos (everyone take a drink) and Netflix – every company wants to be the “it” girl of corporate culture. Culture drives engagement they say. Much corporate treasure is spent to reward behaviors that drive the culture the company has, or hopes to have.

But recent research may show that your reward program has less effect on culture than you think, and in fact, may be wasted money.

An article entitled “When the brain refuses to take the cash” was published on Futurity.org yesterday that discussed an experiment where they looked at people’s brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they were offered cash incentives to change a belief. What they found was pretty interesting from a reward and recognition point of view…

“Our experiment found that the realm of the sacred—whether it’s a strong religious belief, a national identity or a code of ethics—is a distinct cognitive process,” says Gregory Berns, director of the Center for Neuropolicy at Emory University and lead author of the study published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
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Sacred values prompt greater activation of an area of the brain associated with rules-based, right-or-wrong thought processes, the study shows, as opposed to the regions linked to processing of costs-versus-benefits.

Their conclusions – rewards may not affect behavior when that behavior comes from a “sacred belief.”

“Most public policy is based on offering people incentives and disincentives,” Berns says. “Our findings indicate that it’s unreasonable to think that a policy based on costs-and-benefits analysis will influence people’s behavior when it comes to their sacred personal values, because they are processed in an entirely different brain system than incentives.”

A Little Word Substitution Game

Let’s just take their words and play a bit – change “national identity” in the first pullquote to “corporate identity” (and I’d even stretch that to “corporate culture.”) And then let’s just change the word “public policy” in the second pullquote to something like say, “company values” or company rules, or just go with company policy.

Now think about what the research may be hinting at…

Offering incentives to change how people act in relation to rules/policy in a company where the rules are based on corporate culture/identity won’t be very effective.

Hmmm….. what to do, what to do….

Back to the article:

“Organized groups may instill values more strongly through the use of rules and social norms,” Berns says.

Rules and social norms. Where have we heard that before… Oh yeah, recognition works on the rules and social norms.

When we have rules (the stated behaviors we want) and we recognize people for doing those behaviors we create social norms. Therefore, recognition is a better way to reinforce a culture and over time, reinvent it at your company.

Remember… incentives are “do this then that” awards and recognition is after the fact – not a promised contract for change.

All Culture Change Starts With an Existing Culture

If you are seeking to change your company’s culture remember you are already starting with a culture – a set of beliefs held by your employees.

Simply adding incentives to change behavior may not work if the change you’re trying to reinforce with the incentive is contrary to a company sacred value – the participant (employee) won’t feel it the in the reward center of their brain. I’ve set this before – incentives are choice architectures – and this research would seem to say that when incentives are used to change strongly held beliefs they don’t register in the choice part of the brain – therefore – no real “choice” is made.

Now – let me head off some of the haters. I’m just wool-gathering here – playing with an idea so don’t point out that the research really didn’t say what I just concluded. I know that.

What I am suggesting is that this research could be interpreted as programs designed to either create, change or reinforce behaviors around culture in an organization should be looked at from a recognition standpoint – not necessarily an incentive point of view. Especially if the change goes to core beliefs and values in an organization.

If you run a boiler-room – don’t think running an incentive to be more “touchy feely” is going to work. You’d be better off, over time, recognizing and rewarding behaviors than trying to motivate them. Remember – those are two different things.

What do you think? Am I stretching this a bit to make a point or do you think there some some gold flakes in here worth mining?

FOT Webinar: Social Recruiting MacGyver Style! (How to Recruit via Facebook)

Paul Hebert — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:30:22 +0000

As you all know (or should!) I am FOT#3 at Fistful of Talent – THE #1 HR focused multi-contributor blog on internet according to my non-scientific survey tool (I asked other contributors at FOT.) If you don’t read it you should. It’s a cornucopia of HR goodness – irreverent and intelligent – funny and fascinating – timely and tongue in cheek.

2012 is a big year for us FOTers – we’re branching out and doing speaking gigs and webinars – and we got one coming your way. Two of our best are gonna serve up the smarts on Feb 2, 2012.

Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn are teaming up to present the next Fistful of Talent Webinar: Social Recruiting MacGyver Style! No Money, a Paperclip and Facebook – all a Real HR Pro Needs to Recruit. (Sponsored by the good people at Branchout)

Join Kris and Tim on February 2, 2012 for this one-hour webinar and they’ll hit you with the following Facebook-centric items:

Where is social recruiting heading, and why do you need to care as the HR rep of your organization?
How a 1-2 person shop can compete in social recruiting (with no money, a paper clip and Facebook…)
Understanding the difference between Facebook Pages vs. Profiles and how it drives your Facebook recruiting strategy
How to use rarely understood tools like Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Pay-Per-Click Ads to drive Facebook candidates to your open positions
How to use Facebook search features to locate candidates on Facebook and contact them without looking like a stalker

Register today and the fine folks at Fistful of Talent will send you a special FOT toolkit – “How to Find and Contact Candidates on Facebook without Looking Like a Stalker”, once the webinar is complete.

Register today by clicking here!!

You got the 411 – now go do it!

Back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow – or the next day – depends.

The First Of Many? Incentive Companies Due for Rebranding (i2i-align.com)
Fistful of Talent Podcast – Just a Bit Better Sounding Than A Modem Connecting to the Internet (i2i-align.com)

When “Mobile” Recognition Makes Sense

Paul Hebert — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:27:07 +0000

Last week I posted that “mobilizing” employee reward and recognition programs was a red herring. My thought process was that recognizing employees isn’t a function of “location” but a function of effort on the part of managers. Many in the incentive industry are launching “mobile” apps for their incentive and reward platforms selling it from the “Managers can now recognize people in the moment” point of view.

I took a negative stand and said no manager is going to stop what they are doing and recognize someone just because there is an app for that. They won’t stop mid-stride and do in the hallway on the way back to their office. They won’t put the waiter on hold and do it in a restaurant or bar. If managers think recognition is deserved they will most likely do it during their normal business day via their desk top or some other device that connects with the company’s recognition software.

Read that again – I said “device.”

I do think companies need to consider various device options when designing their solution – but the REASON to do it isn’t because it will drive more recognition. Lack of a mobile app isn’t what stops recognition from happening. It doesn’t happen because managers DON’T DO IT. I will say it again… Recognition from manager to employee is not a function of convenience – it’s a function of caring!

That said… here is where I think it DOES make sense to potentially have an app to drive recognition…

What if You’re Not A Manager But A Customer?

Friday, last week a reward and recognition company, Globoforce, posted a story about an employee’s encounter with a service technician at their home. The employee had a great service experience and wanted to give the service tech some recognition. The process entailed him calling the company, talking to someone on the phone and they in turn (I’m assuming now) had to create a file or piece of communication that went to someone else who then had to verify it and then put it in the system – and THEN the employee got recognized.

Now… THAT is where a “mobile” app makes all the sense in the world!

If the company had a system that had a customer-facing app or website, the Globoforce employee could have accessed the site via his phone or tablet (or even possibly by text messaging a number) recognized the employee, put in some sort of tracking code such as a call number or PO number that would be linked to the service visit to validate the recognition and VIOLA – the employee is recognized! The system could then send a text to the service technician’s phone to let him know it happened (and to his/her manager as well.)

That’s how you use mobile apps. Enable something that needs to be enabled by “mobile.”

The idea here folks is look for those situations where being mobile is the CAUSE of the problem – ie: a customer can’t recognize excellent service quickly and easily.

So, maybe I’m not as clueless as some of my commentators from last week’s post thought I was.

What do you think? Is this a better example of how “mobile” makes sense?

I Like You – Here’s Some Money (i2i-align.com)
Simplify Employee Recognition! (awardemployees.com)
Are Mobile Apps For Rewards and Recognition Red Herrings? (i2i-align.com)

Are Mobile Apps For Rewards and Recognition Red Herrings?

Paul Hebert — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:34:19 +0000

Question for you all…

Is having a mobile application for your rewards and recognition system important?

Is it needed?

Or is it simply a solution in search of a problem? Is it marketing bluster and me-too-ism? Is the development of apps and mobile tools to reward and recognize people really something the market needs and wants (and when I say market, I mean the users of reward systems – not the buyer, not the seller.)

I don’t know.

Based on the seller side of the equation – mobile is the sh*t… everyone is jumping on.

How Is It Better?

I spend a lot of time with clients and companies that provide reward and recognition solutions to clients and mobile is ALWAYS on the agenda.

Being the smart ass I am I always push back and ask “why?”

The answer, almost unanimously is:

“With mobile, when a manger leaves a meeting or an interaction with an employee they can just whip out their phone (or other smart device, ipad, tablet, etc.) and two clicks later reward and recognize that person.”

Yeah… I get what the application can do. But just because they have the application will they recognize people any more, any better?

Here’s where I become the contrarian and say…

Why use the app when I can just recognize them right then, verbally, genuinely, specifically? Wouldn’t that be even BETTER than leaving the room, stopping in the hallway (‘cuz you can’t really work a phone or tablet while walking – try it…) clicking an app, opening the app, picking the employee out of a list, clicking a button to choose the type of recognition, adding a value if necessary, hitting submit, then confirm and THEN go to your next meeting?

Just doesn’t pass the test of solving a problem.

Recognition has never been a system problem. It’s always been a people problem.

Creating a Complex Solution to a Simple Problem

The problem isn’t that we don’t have an easy way to recognize and reward people – the problem is… wait for it…

MANAGERSA DON’T DO IT!

Given the scenario most of my clients provide – simple, easy, quick recognition – via the mobile app – I have to ask – is that better than just sitting across the table and saying … “Great job, appreciate the time you put into this and it will make a difference moving forward. I, and the company, are glad you’re here.”

The manager can then just jot down – “send ecard and award points to Jim/Mary” in their daily planner (analog or digital) – to be completed at the end of the day or next morning when they sit down at the computer (laptop or desktop, home or office.)

I’m I all wet? Is mobile really about enhancing and encouraging recognition and rewards – or is it just cooler marketing for reward providers?

I know that cool things can sometimes spur activity… just playing with the app will probably increase recognition activity (for a while) but I really don’t see mobile apps solving any process problem – and that my friend is what they do.

IMHO, apps solve process problems. Lack of recognition in most companies is not a process issue.

What do you think? Is mobile important? Does it solve any problem or is it simply the newest, brightest, shiniest object?

I’m in the latter camp.

YOU Are the Reason Your Recognition Program Failed (i2i-align.com)
Motivation and Recognition “Lose Weight Trap” (i2i-align.com)
Isn’t It Pretty? (i2i-align.com)

I Like You – Here’s Some Money

Paul Hebert — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:50:34 +0000

Peer to Peer programs (P2P) are pretty much a standard offering in employee reward and recognition programs today. If you’re not looking at P2P as a feature in your program – got back and start over. P2P is a common and well-liked option within a company’s recognition strategy.

For those under a rock – P2P is where one employee can give recognition to another employee as they see fit. In many cases these recognition events are without monetary reward – but do provide the employees with a way to highlight performance above and beyond. What’s nice about P2P is that they are user generated, easy to do, provide some level of control to the employee (a motivating factor in and of itself) and if a management team is smart – helps identify contributors that may be hidden by poor managers, poor systems or lack of proximity to the employee (physically or temporally.)

There are some instances where the P2P awards are put into a monthly/quarterly sweepstakes in order to attach a tangible award to them. That’s nice, but it’s a game of chance then. Someone who was recognized by their fellow employees 2,067 times may not ever “win” a monthly sweepstakes but some buffoon in Marketing who held the door open last Wednesday may get the gift card, or plaque, or iPad. Not always fair when you do the “chance” thing. Just sayin’.

I personally think P2P programs are openers for any enterprise recognition strategy. I also think P2P programs need more teeth than simple ecards and sweepstakes. I believe each employee should be given individual recognition budgets they can use to reinforce company values, mission and specific over-the-top behaviors.

But IGN thinks it’s more about the money than the recognition.

Color me interested, but not invested, in the idea…

“Viral Pay” System at IGN

Last Friday on the HRMorning site I saw a post on IGN and their “unique” system of allowing individual employees to allocate a portion of the company’s profits to fellow employees. To quote the article on HRMorning:

“Twice a year, in January and July, IGN calculates how much profit there is to share. Based on that figure, it distributes ‘tokens of appreciation’ worth $1 a piece among its employees. Then employees must give all their tokens away to their co-workers.
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Employees can give the tokens to whomever they want, except IGN’s president.
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Workers are not told the names of those who gave them tokens.
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The company does publicize the number of tokens received by top employees, as well as the average amount employees received.
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Managers are also given tokens to give to strong performing employees they feel may have been overlooked in the token giveaway.“
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I like it because, like the post highlights, it does democratize rewards and recognition, and helps identify hidden stars in the organization.

It’s really not “unique” – @zappos (everyone drink!) allocates around $500 in cash to each employee for them to reward as they see fit. Same thing, they’ve just cut out the “tokens.” Not sure from my conversations with zappos.com if the awards are anonymous though.

The Good The Bad and The Ugly

The Good…

Employees get control over the distribution of some of the company’s profits.
Employees may well be the best judge of who is working toward the common good and who is not. Managers can be blinded by style over substance and continually reward the best political player – not the best player. This has the potential to mitigate that.
It gives smart management a peak under the covers so to speak – getting a glimpse of who is really driving company success and provides a bigger pool of potential high-performer to keep your eyes on.

The Bad…

It’s compensation-based and therefore has the possibility (I’d say probability) of becoming an entitlement and requirement in the future. Many employees may begin to expect this type of compensation.
If the amounts are too rich (can’t tell from the article) behaviors can be skewed from working for the best of the company – to working for the best for Bob in Accounting. Those activities may not be aligned.
Because we’re talking “cash” here – I’d be a bit worried about collusion. I know the article says it’s “anonymous”” – but really – what is anonymous today?

The Ugly

It is tied to company profitability. I understand it – but I don’t like it.
In my mind if a company believes that individual effort is important. If they believe that recognition is a key way to highlight great employee work. If the company really believes that recognition and reward is a way to drive superior performance and employee engagement – it SHOULD NOT be tied to profitability.

What, wait? Not Tied To Profitability?

Think about it this way…

Tying awards to profitability is kind of a chicken/egg thing right? If I don’t have profits, I can’t recognize people, therefore I can’t get people engaged with the company, and therefore I don’t get profits. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

If you base this on profitability then you have to have done something else before being profitable to get to profitability and by definition – that “something else” worked and you wouldn’t need to do this. Right?

Don’t get me wrong- I’m big on sharing success. But I think any forward-thinking company that believes their employees are critical to their long-term success would invest in rewards and recognition regardless of profitability. I’d cut free massages, free coffee and executive luxury car leases before I’d cut back on my recognition budget.

So Net-Net

Do P2P programs.
Don’t tie them to compensation.
Do them regardless of profitability.

What do you think? Is this better, worse or just an added nicety for employees?

Before you agree/disagree – think about this…

Fun Facts

Coming off the Golden Globe awards last night I started thinking about manager vs. peer recognition in a company and it reminded me of the way in which Oscar’s are awarded. The Academy (read: managers) vote for what they think are the best. But that isn’t always a reflection of what is popular with the movie-going (and paying) public (the employees.) Many times it’s not even a close race between popular and Oscar worthy.

To-wit: Top 10 lowest grossing Best Picture winners:

Movie/Year	Domestic Gross (inflation adjusted)
1. The Hurt Locker (2009)	$17.5 million
2. Crash (2005)	$61.5 million
3. No Country for Old Men (2007)	$78.9 million
4. The Last Emperor (1987)	$85.3 million
5. Braveheart (1995)	$109.3 million
6. Amadeus (1984)	$109.3 million
7. The English Patient (1996)	$110.4 million
8. Million Dollar Baby (2004)	$117.2 million
9. Gandhi (1982)	$120.4 million
10. Shakespeare in Love (1998)	$135.5 million

This tells me you need both. I’d take out the cash though…

What are your thoughts?

YOU Are the Reason Your Recognition Program Failed (i2i-align.com)
Motivation and Recognition “Lose Weight Trap” (i2i-align.com)

Negative Recognition? “You Suck. Here’s Your Award.”

Paul Hebert — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:30:59 +0000

Here’s a thought – and it’s only a thought so don’t go nuts…

Do we need to recognize bad behaviors in our organizations?

Bob Sutton – author of the Work Matters blog and the books, Good Boss, Bad Boss, The No Asshole Rule and one my favs… Hard Facts Dangerous Half-Truths & Total Nonsense wrote a post yesterday about a discussion he had with the CEO of YUM! Brands (Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut.) In that discussion Sutton asks about bad behaviors and here’s a quote from the post…

“Second, when I asked him about bad behavior (as readers of this blog know, I have written quite a bit about how “bad is stronger than good“), he had a great line, something like: ‘We are a company that believes in recognition, and that means recognizing both good and bad behavior.’“

That is an interesting idea.

Hall of Shame

How often are “bad behaviors” swept under the rug at an organization? How many people “leave to pursue other options” when in fact they had expensed a night at a strip club, or hit on everyone female in the accounting department? How often is screaming and yelling and belittling happening – but ignored? Those are bad behaviors.

Should you recognize them?

I know there are some little things like “legal issues” to consider – but in general – should you recognize bad behavior? Should you have a “Hall of Shame” next to your “Hall of Fame?”

Not recognizing and ignoring bad behaviors is approval no?

Curious – should your next reward and recognition program not only have the normal “Kudos” cards but maybe a few “Cujo” cards so people can recognize when people do crappy things?

Now that could be real fun.

Annual Incentives Programs Are Bad (i2i-align.com)
How Evil Are You? (i2i-align.com)
When To Use Recognition VS Incentives – Advice for 2012 (i2i-align.com)

Goal Setting – @EvaRykr Nails It!

Paul Hebert — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:45:36 +0000

Writing a post about goal setting would probably have made more sense before 2012 kicked off. But then again, if I had read @EvaRykr’s post before 2012 I’d have better goals myself.

But it’s not too late. You can still rewrite your goals using some of the great info from Eva’s post from January 2^nd .

Rather than have me paraphrase just about everything in her post, I’ll just point you to it here. Read it. No, I’m serious. GO READ IT NOW!

Thank you. Great stuff no?

Making It Apply in Your Incentive Program

Goals are like coins – they have sides… a good side and a better side. To recap for Eva’s great post:

Behavior versus Outcome Goals: focusing on what you can solely control (your behavior) can prevent the frustration that occurs when, despite your best effort and intentions, events outside of your control serve as a roadblock.
Approach versus Avoidance Goals: using positive phrasing and focusing on what you do want can have dramatically different results than focusing on what you don’t want.
Concrete versus Abstract Goals: stating your goals in very specific language and quantifying them can provide more structure and motivation than being vague about it.

Eva states that in most (again, MOST) cases behavior, approach and concrete are the best goal attributes. And I’d agree. She suggests times when outcome, avoidance and abstract have their place. However, in most incentive applications, the latter will do you more harm than good and it would best to stick with the behavior, approach and concrete – leave the others to the professionals.

Incentive Program Goals

So, what do objectives look like when done correctly in a sales and employee incentive programs? Check the chart below. I took what I’ve seen as typical program objectives and reworded them in light of Eva’s recommendations.

Goal Type	Old (bad)	New (good)	Comments
Behavior VS Outcome . . /	Sell 100 units by March 31.	Make 20 cold calls, follow up with 25% of your current customers, ask for 10 referrals, etc.	These are behaviors you can control. And they have the added benefit of being concrete.
Approach VS Avoidance . . /	Don’t talk about my own company too much during the sales call.	Ask 10 questions about the client’s business before talking about my own company.	This positions the same issue in positive light – and it is concrete.
Concrete VS Abstract . . /	Improve customer service.	Ask every customer if their situation has been addressed appropriately.	A concrete action that can measured.

ROI is How You Measure the Program – Not How You Structure It

Take a look at the objectives in your incentive and reward programs. Are the written to look more like column 2 than column 3? Probably. Most likely because someone told you that you needed to measure ROI and therefore, you must track and reward the things that go into the ROI equation. No sense running the program unless it eventually drives some sort of return, right?

The problem is that in order to make it easy to calculate the ROI, planners design the program around the result metric – not the people metric. In other words, most people figure that if they want the program to increase sales, they should measure and reward sales. But that rarely results in behavior-based goals. They may be concrete and they may be approach – but in this case 2 out of three is bad.

It might be a bit harder to write out the ROI equation – but remember – your REAL goal is to change behavior long-term. Not JUST show an ROI.

You can show an ROI by threatening to fire everyone too… but you wouldn’t use a Glenngarry Glenn Ross approach would you? I hope not. (Email and RSS subscribers may need to click through to see video below – LANGUAGE WARNING!!! NSFW without headphones – really NSFW – I warned you.)

Take the time and work hard to make most of your incentive program objectives behavior-based, approach and concrete. You’ll be better for it in the long run.

Has The Incentive/Reward Industry Achieved Commodity Status? (i2i-align.com)
Annual Incentives Programs Are Bad (i2i-align.com)
How Much Ambiguity Is In Your Incentive Program? (i2i-align.com)
Assumptions Suck – Top 10 Incentive Assumptions (i2i-align.com)

I2I - Incentive Intelligence

Incentive & Reward Programs Need More UGC

Old School – New School

Get Your Social On and Get Engagement

Enter UGC

Social Program Communications – A Snapshot

Pinterest for Award Goals

Program Blog Instead of Static “Web Page”

Interactive Progress Reports

For Group Travel Programs – A Natural

What Say You?

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