Incentive - March 2008 - (Page 28)

CASE STUDY An actor dressed as the Max! character recognizes AEIS employee Brad Briscoe, the creator of Max!, at the company’s annual sales conference in 2006 Max!-ing Out Recognition For American Express Incentive Services, an award-winning employee recognition program was of Max!-imum importance BY LEO JAKOBSON A few years ago, executives at American Express Incentive Services realized they had a problem with their internal employee recognition program. “We had a program, but usage was mediocre, it was stale,” says Julie Hubert, director of employee development of American Express Incentive Services (AEIS), a St. Louis–based joint venture between Maritz Inc. and American Express that focuses on the incentive gift card market. “We wanted to create a culture of recognition that was also a culture of performance.” Slipping employee engagement is a problem for any company, but it’s just downright embarrassing for an incentive company. Thus, Max! was born. Max! is simultaneously the blue-skinned, redcaped embodiment of engagement at AEIS, and the symbol of the company’s commitment to “MAXimum Recognition of our People and MAXimum Performance.” Oh, and he’s also the Incentive winner of an Incentive Marketing Association 2007 Circle of Excellence Award, presented at The Motivation Show in Chicago last year. So clearly, AEIS succeeded in its goals. (Full disclosure: The author of this article was a 2007 Circle of Excellence judge.) At its core, the Max! Employee Rewards & Recognition Program is an online, points-based, peer- and managerrecognition tool. In 2006, AEIS distributed more than $85,000 worth of points (at $1 per point) to its employees that they were supposed to award to peers or, in the case of managers, to direct reports, for providing superior customer service or making it easier to do business with AEIS. Other incentive programs, including a sales incentive and another supporting an all-hands corporate goal of becoming a billion-dollar firm by 2008, were worked into Max! as well. Manager buy-in was an important component of the program. The company had a special, custom-designed Max! Trophy for managers who exhibited Profile: American Express Incentive Services Program: Max! Employee Rewards & Recognition Program, a Web-based peer-topeer and manager recognition program using points on an AEIS DirectSpend gift card Objectives: Improve AEIS’ culture of recognition in order to increase employee satisfaction, help management embrace formal and informal recognition, and keep employees’ focus on company performance goals. In addition, the Max! program was intended to be a template for an AEIS recognition program platform. ROI: Employee satisfaction scores jumped from 3.2 to 4.25 after one year; 100 percent participation, with 65 percent of employees awarding all of their points and the rest giving out 50 to 70 percent. 28 | | March 2008 | incentivemag.com http://incentivemag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Incentive - March 2008

Incentive - March 2008 Contents Editor’s Note: Delivering on Diversity In The News Cover Story: Leveraging Diversity in the Workplace Incentive Interview: Paul Levesque on Why Awards Fail Case Study: AEIS’ Max!-imum Incentive Program Mine Employees’ Creativity with Innovation Incentives Incentive Must-Reads The Third Annual Gift Card Roundtable My Turn: Motivation or Bribery? Everybody Get Together In Her Shoes: Why Bosses Should Be Flexible Incentive Primer: Passport Problem-Solving potentials Here and Now Is CES Electronics Heaven? China and Crystal: More Than a Pretty Face Travel News Florida: What’s New on the Beach? Smooth Sailing for Incentive Cruising Come To Hawaii And Take It Fast Last Word: But Enough About You

Incentive - March 2008

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