Incentive - September 2008 - (Page 20) COVER STORY MetLife Rethinks Recognition When it comes to recognition, MetLife Auto & Home puts its employees in charge BY LEO JAKOBSON L 20 | Incentive | September 2008 | incentivemag.com Photo: Milton Morris ike a small but rapidly growing number of companies today, MetLife Auto & Home has a formal employee recognition program. And although the Warwick, R.I.–based insurer’s Best of the Best program is, on the surface, similar to many other companies’ recognition programs, there are some very interesting differences that set it apart from the common recognition initiative. For while the five-year-old program is a centrally created initiative supported by senior executives, it is managed and administered by frontline employees—all volunteers. Even the program’s national manager, Recognition Chairperson Ronnie Brennan, oversees Best of the Best in addition to her “real” job as claims technical administrator. And the recognition champions who oversee the program in the field, at each office or business unit, are associates or local supervisors. It is truly a bottom-up recognition program. Which is the way upper management wants it. “The direction of the program is determined by the Recognition Champions Committee,” says Marge Rhody, the vice president of customer service operations, who signs off on the program. “We really wanted it to be peer recognition in local offices, let local recognition champions create the program. It can’t be topdown.” That is how Tommy Lee Hayes-Brown, http://incentivemag.com
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