Incentive - March 2008 - (Page 49)

the respective rules for each country to ensure deadlines are met and papers are filed for everyone going on the trip. Outside of concerns about paperwork, the needs of the participants on important points like dietary and language preferences are cited by planners as issues to address. Though hiring an outside translator is an option, in most groups, at least one member will speak both English and the foreign language. But incentive planners stress that often they can just as easily supply a bilingual representative for the trip. “We have a multilingual staff. I speak four languages, we have people here who speak Arabic, who speak Chinese. I think we speak 18 different languages in our office,” says Piero Niemi, senior vice president of operations and purchasing for Newport Beach, Calif.–based Ambassadors LLC. “We would look into hiring translators locally wherever the destination is, but if that didn’t work, we would have to have them travel.” Planners emphasize the importance of offering alternative ways for the participants to communicate with the office throughout the planning phase. Besides promptly responding to e-mail, it is also important to offer phone coverage to participants where they can get in touch with people who know the program, perhaps by connecting the main number to planners’ mobile phones during off hours or ensuring there is a well-briefed representative at the customer service desk. “When you are [planning for] somebody from a different side of the world, you have to be sure that you have knowledgeable people who can answer specific program questions if somebody calls at midnight,” says Niemi. Considering the wide use of English at most multinational companies, groups usually include several, if not all English-speaking participants, and Niemi stressed that she sees language concerns as “a minor obstacle” for planners in this day and age. Perhaps more tricky would be dietary issues. Though there’s no accounting for individual tastes, planners say that it’s prudent to include certain cultural food staples with meals, if the incoming participants are apt to expect familiar choices. The more mixed the group involved, the more variety may be required. “Always fresh, recognizable foods, avoiding anything too exotic, and we always use beef consistently,” says Karen Hipple, account manager, travel and event service for MotivAction, who has planned several multinational events. Asked about why beef, she explained, “It’s just sort of a universal thing, and America has a good reputation for beef. We also try to appeal to global menus during breaks: hummus with bagel chips, fresh fruit smoothie bars, a buildyour-own trail mix bar.” Jacquie Brave, partner at Chicago-based destination management company Accenting Chicago Events & Tours, has found that preparation is key. “As long as we know ahead of time, we work with the caterers, work with the restaurants, and the restaurants here are very open-minded,” says Brave. If you have a particularly diverse group, a suggested approach is to accentuate the other international attendees. At the end of the event, there was a drawing, and the winner received an all-expense-paid trip to one of the destinations on the passport (everyone who had given the winner a stamp received Bose noise-reducing headphones). By the end of the event, the interactions between the many different employees proved so beneficial “the president of the company got up and said, ‘I have to be honest, when we started planning this event I didn’t want to do it, but…we got more out of this than we ever imagined and we want to do it again,’” says Hipple. One area of concern was the plan for the first night. The planners thought it would be fun for the international guests to take part in a real American Super Bowl party, watching the Giants take on the Patriots. Since more than half of the guests weren’t American, planners were concerned that many might not be interested in this most-American of activities. So MotivAction turned it “You have to be sure that you have knowledgeable people who can answer questions if somebody calls at midnight.” –Piero Niemi, Ambassadors LLC multinational nature of the attendees. Choices might include cross-cultural activities, where individuals learn about where members of their group come from, using participants’ differences as discussion-starters. A recent meeting and incentive event hosted by MotivAction demonstrated the value of having many cultures on a single trip. Taking place at the Royal Pacific and Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando, the client, a large pharmaceutical company, decided to have MotivAction combine what would usually have been two separate meetings into one huge global event, bringing in participants from four continents into one place. The global nature of the event became one of its most memorable aspects, with tables and chairs in the dining area set up to look like the globe, and a meet-and-greet activity where individuals received “passports” they had to get stamps on from the into an “International Sports Festival.” “When we started out talking about a Super Bowl party, there was all this feedback coming from the Europe team and a little from the Asian team saying…‘let’s make it a worldwide thing,’ ” says Hipple. So the event incorporated pool tables, interactive games, karaoke, poolside huts with massage therapists, and a sports bar with a 9- by 16-foot screen and a half dozen smaller televisions showing the game. “Well, within less than an hour, pretty much all of the participants were gathered around the screen,” says Hipple. “I actually ended up having our staff going around and inviting people to come and have a free massage, but they weren’t utilizing it because they were so wrapped up in the excitement of the game.” Sometimes “cultural experiences” take on surprising forms. incentivemag.com | March 2008 | Incentive | 49 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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