Incentive - June 2008 - (Page 12)

IN THE NEWS RPI Encourages Excellence Recognition is attracting the world’s top corporations BY JENNIFER JUERGENS Maritz and the Unconference he top brass of leading incentive house Maritz Inc. were joined by 90 of their best clients at “Connections,” the St. Louis– based firm’s fourth annual Incentive Industry Summit. Held May 13-16 at THEhotel at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, the “unconference,” as Maritz referred to it, began with a kickoff cocktail reception at the Bellagio that included a gauntlet of about 200 employees applauding guests as if they had just made the final touchdown in the Super Bowl. Christine Duffy, president of Maritz Travel, and David Weinberger, author of Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, spoke on future tech trends. During sessions, clients from Comcast, Sun Microsystems, Aramark, and AT&T, among others, copresented seminars with folks from Maritz in unconference-like settings (living room style, for example). Seminars included familyfriendly incentives, using meetings in incentives, non-cash rewards and sales force effectiveness. Another, “Is your reward and recognition investment paying off?” showed the group ways Maritz surveys E ncouraging Excellence was Microsoft’s Michael Norried spoke on the theme of the 11th Annual cross-organizational collaboration, Recognition Professionals budgeting and localization. International Conference that Recognition Professionals Internatook place from April 27th to April tional, formerly NAER, is an 30th in Newport Beach, Calif. Speakers international nonprofit association of included Bill Buckner and Karen Sachs employers existing to study, develop and from Cargill Inc. They shared ideas as promote systems that enhance employee well as “tragic moments” on creating a culture of recognition in a complex organization. Bill Catlette, author of Contented Cows Moove Faster, spoke on the keys to winning through people (see our interview with Catlette on page 24). Bob Nelson spoke on recognition technologies and the best ways in which managers can motivate. “The feedback we got from the conference includTIm Rossi and Brian Schwartz of recognition program ed ‘This is the best conference ever,’ provider Globoforce at the RPI International Conference which we were really proud of,” says Christi L. Gibson, CRP, executive direc- engagement and performance through tor of RPI. “Our Going Green effort employee recognition. Its membership was well received and attendees thought is composed mostly of corporate recogour breakout sessions were extremely nition managers. informative.” The 12th Annual RPI Conference Kevin Cronin of Bank of America will be held at the Naples Grand Resort spoke on “Aligning Recognition & Club in Naples, Fla., May 3-6, 2009. Programs with Corporate Goals and Certified Recognition Professional Culture,” and Mary Kennett of courses will be offered May 1, 2 and 6. Amgen, along with Derek Irvine of The fall summit will be held in Chicago Globoforce, talked about how Amgen, a at McCormick Place Sept. 23-25 in Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company, conjunction with The Motivation Show. got 15,000 employees worldwide Please visit www.recognition.org for more information. involved in their recognition program. T participants before a program to make the incentive more meaningful. Questions include: “Is R&R important to winners?” “Is bringing along spouses a must?” “Is recognition from the higher-ups on the trip meaningful?” Answers to such questions reveal what type of employee you have: experience seekers, career builders, tangible award seekers or personal choice seekers. The survey tool, Motivation Insight, has been administered to six clients so far. Tim O’Neill of Maritz and Lory Fraraccio-Kenney, manager of sales planning for AT&T operations, talked about reward programs that would encourage frequent play. Fraraccio-Kenney spoke about the AT&T Signature Success Program—and about its success. At another session, about incorporating meetings and incentives, planners for Bayer and Cisco spoke about their best practices. Steve Maritz, the company’s chairman and CEO, closed the event with some choice words: “We can talk together and turn these ideas into something we can try in the marketplace. And next year, we can see how those ideas worked.” —JJ 12 | Incentive | June 2008 | incentivemag.com http://www.recognition.org http://incentivemag.com

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

Incentive - June 2008 Contents Editor’s Note In The News Cover Story: Seventh Annual Industry Roundtable Incentive Interview Case Study Soft Incentives Empowerment and Engagement The Incentive Career Incentive Primer Travel News: Where To Go and What To Do The Cook Islands Field Report: Bermuda Potentials: Here and Now 50 Top Motivators: The Best of the Best Electronics: High-end Audio Equipment Gift Cards: Should One Be Enough? Advertiser Index Off The Cuff

Incentive - June 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.