We need you to do more with less.” Maybe no CEO ever says those actual words to his or her managers, but the message is nevertheless being heard in conference rooms nationwide as the soft economy continues to affect corporate spending across the board.
In times of belt-tightening, one of the first things to get cut from corporate diets seems to be bonuses and incentives for employees. But if your managers already have a crew of overworked employees, and they're under the gun to keep costs down, how can those managers keep their staff motivated? How can they efficiently match incentives to the interests and needs of their people?
It's impossible to ignore incentives, especially if your company is making cuts elsewhere. “Organizations that have downsized are often faced with demoralized and over-stressed staffs,” says Karen Renk, executive director, Incentive Marketing Association. “Well-designed incentive programs make the participants feel valued and appreciated and should be viewed as a sound investment in a business's greatest asset — it's employees.”
The overall message
Let's not kid ourselves: money talks. There's nothing like a big bonus check to keep your employees happily greasing the wheels of commerce. However, sometimes you just can't cut the fat checks and you've got to be a little more creative in your thinking.
“We've always been a proponent of motivated messaging,” says Mike Casale, president, Leverage MarCom of Newtown, CT. “What message do you want to impart to your audience and how do you motivate them to that?” He cites the example of Coca Cola. “Coke was looking for an ‘everybody wins’ tag that people could get excited about at the end of a sales meeting. They had a limited budget, because they had sunk a lot of money into the meeting for 4,000 people.”
Casale's staff came up with the Winning Momentum scratch-off game. At the end of the meeting, Coke asked attendees to fill out a 20-minute survey. As Casale notes, “I don't know about you, but that would be my invitation to leave! But then they announced that if you fill out the survey, you get a scratch-off card with the opportunity to win Great Adventure, Yankees, or movie tickets.” Attendees sat down and scratched the game card to reveal such phrases as “Putting Our People First,” “A Great Place to Work” or “You Have Momentum,” which were the three main messages of the meeting. Matching any two messages won a prize. There was an astonishing 97% participation in the survey.
Coke was happy with the results, too. “We're always seeking unique ideas to motivate the skills and talents of our diverse workforce, and the scratch-off game card has universal appeal,” says Harriet Tolve, public affairs manager, Coca-Cola Enterprises. “Everyone really sparked to it.” Leverage provided Coca-Cola with a low-cost add-on to their meeting, which helped to underscore the motivational messages that the beverage behemoth was looking to impart to their employees. “The scratch-off games are not really a stand-alone premium incentive; they need to be part of a larger campaign,” explains Casale. “Yet we've found them to be remarkably exciting and inexpensive, as well.”
Fun for the whole family
Most companies' incentive motives are the same: unify employees, reinforce corporate messaging and maximize staff enthusiasm. And they don't have a lot of money to spend.
That where creativity — and empathy with your employees — comes in. One low-cost incentive is to provide a “movie night” for employees. And as harried working parents across the world know, there's nothing like popping a movie into the VCR to quiet the wee beasties in the house and create a little down time for Mom or Dad.
“Companies choose Blockbuster for employee incentives for a few different reasons,” explains Lisa Voellner, VP of partnership marketing, Blockbuster, Dallas, TX. “We offer quick turnaround, easy fulfillment and it's something that has a halo effect: if parents get a Blockbuster card at work, they can share it with the whole family. It's also a positive entertainment experience, as opposed to a gift card where they might buy a necessity that is not fun or entertaining. And with 5,300 locations, folks don't have to go out of their way to enjoy it.”
Blockbuster works with companies of all sizes and offers $5 through $20 denominations on gift cards, or movie rental cards that can be used for one, five or 10 rentals that companies can use for inexpensive everyday incentives.
Cashing out
There are some who advocate holding back on the cash bonuses and incentives altogether and replacing them with gift certificates, for a number of reasons.
“People associate a gift certificate with buying something for themselves that they might not buy normally,” says Mike Ahern, Giftcertificate.com CEO. “Because of that, employees think more highly of the gift they receive. The other benefit over cash is that it's insulting to cut an employee a check for $10 or $25. But if you give them a gift certificate that will take them to the movies, or let them have lunch out on the company, it's entirely acceptable.”
Ahern says that gift certificates make the employee feel good about the recognition received, and then they feel good about the company. He or she might take it home and show it to their spouse — and then they get to choose the merchant they want to use, which is also a fun experience.
“So you've got multiple touch points where they're feeling good about the company, as opposed to the traditional check, which just gets deposited into the household account,” Ahern explains. “We can customize the presentation, with a logo on the card, include a customized message, and we put it in a nice package and send it out. One trend is that more and more of these are being sent out by email, which also represents a cost saving.”
Managers can also use such gifts as spot bonuses, by keeping a few in the drawer, and handing them out with a little ceremony when an employee does something noteworthy.
“Motivation is tough right now, and companies are looking for ways to give smaller gifts that are still meaningful,” Ahern continues. His company provides gift certificates, good on their Web site for over 300 merchants, for clients that range from Fortune 500 companies with hundreds of employees to local doctor's offices that want to recognize their four or five staffers. On a general monthly basis, about 66% of Giftcertificate.com's corporate sales are repeat business. “The repeat business shows that the incentives are definitely working,” Ahern concludes.
Tying into consumer deals
Another cost-efficient way to motivate employees is to piggyback an incentive onto a customer promotion. This is a win-win for everyone — it excites the employees about activating a promotion at retail when they can also win prizes, and it's just a small incremental cost in your promotion budget. And you already know that when an employee is excited about a promotion is translates to the customer.
With Alamo Rent-a-Car, it was essential to the successful launch of a new campaign. “We partnered with Foote, Cone Belding to present the Drive Happy campaign,” says Mike Casale. “On the consumer side, we had a scratch-off game that revealed messages like ‘A Clean Car,’ ‘Quicksilver Service,’ or ‘Unlimited Smileage’ and awarded airline miles. On the employee side, we had a similar game that revealed messages like ‘Be Courteous.’ and reinforced what they needed to do to make the customer happy. We then gave employees a chance to win. By having a companion piece that allowed the employee to win air miles and other low-level prizes, it mitigated the frustration that an employee might feel when he hands someone a ticket worth $50,000.”
Such programs also have the bonus of costing only a few extra pennies when the production of the employee piece is added to the consumer piece.
Some companies are even going out of their way to motivate other company's employees. “One trend we're seeing is from clients like cell phone companies. All such brands get sold at places like Radio Shack, so we created a Web site where every time a salesperson sells a phone from a particular carrier they can enter the phone number and at the end of the month they'll get a $5 certificate for every phone they've sold,” explains Ahern. “This is just motivating non-employees to keep your product top of mind.”
You can ring their bells
Bell Canada finds that re-loadable gift cards from American Express Incentive Services (AEIS) can be a powerful motivational tool. The company's 5,000 call center employees were stressed out, morale was low and turnover was high. The communications giant had tried all the typical rewards in the past — food, candy, pizza, logoed merchandise, catalog programs — but nothing was working at the level the company needed.
Finally, it did an in-house focus group and found that a universal type gift certificate might be the ticket. Bell Canada now sets performance goals it wants its employees to reach, and when these are achieved, the employee's gift card is immediately reloaded with more buying power, redeemable wherever American Express is accepted.
Results were immediate and dramatic: before the AEIS incentive program was launched, goals were met 50% of the time. After the program launched, the company hit goals 12 out of 12 months. “This reward program saves me time and money because I only have one program to manage,” says Jason Fisher, rewards and recognition manager, Bell Canada.
AMEX and distribution partner SCA Promotions of Dallas, TX, offer another twist to gift certificate programs, as Bob Hamman, SCA president explains: “You can use filters to target certain merchants, which makes it possible for the employer to get a little more bang for their buck, with discounts that accrue to the benefit of the employer. This also supports employers' co-marketing and trade marketing efforts.”
So it's still possible to keep employees motivated in tough times, if you just take a creative approach to the whole process. Use smaller incentives more frequently or excite your employees by letting them earn and choose their own rewards. By doing what you can, when you can, you'll be helping to keep your workforce happier in uncertain times.
Brian W. Kelly is a freelance journalist and researcher specializing in marketing topics. He is based in Brookfield, CT.
