Incentive - September 2008 - (Page 30) COVER STORY employees who were not recognition champions was brought to MetLife Auto & Home’s Rhode Island headquarters for a three-day conference to look at the fiveyear-old program and suggest changes to bring it to the next level. Based on that committee’s suggestions, the company is making some substantial changes to the program, particularly to the awards, Brennan says. In the middle tier, the Woodstock-, Lucy-, Charlie Brown- and Snoopy-level awards will offer winners a far greater selection. Winners will be able to combine, for example, two Lucys and choose a Charlie Brown. The top prizes will stay at the dollar amount associated with Snoopy to avoid tax complications, Brennan says. And while that is still unfolding, the toptier program recently underwent a fairly substantial change. The winning 1 percent has traditionally been chosen to attend the annual three-day sales conference in Rhode Island, bringing a spouse. But these are non-sales employees, Brennan notes, and the task force felt, “as much as it was a compliment to be there, maybe we could do something a little different,” she says. Last September, the 33 winners and their spouses flew out to Rhode Island, checking in on a Thursday night, she says. The employees being honored had a Friday meeting with senior staff, followed by an awards dinner where each winner was called up to be recognized by the president and top executives. Each one received a $1,500 travel voucher to use with their families—an individual travel incentive. Other changes Brennan’s task force recommended include adding e-cards to the Web-based nomination system to facilitate giving day-to-day kudos to virtual employ- ees, to ship the middle-tier awards more quickly, and to strengthen the back-end reporting capabilities, making it easier for management to go through the 6,300 annual Best of the Best peer nominations and break out data like what behaviors are being nominated, who’s doing the nominating and where more recognition training might be needed, among other things. Which isn’t to say everything’s changing. Rhody says that the company was considering expanding the top-tier winners from 33 to about 40, adding a few more winner slots. But in an example of how serious MetLife Auto & Home’s management is about keeping Best of the Best a bottom-up program, the recognition champions shot that down. “They wanted to keep it exclusive,” Rhody adds, noting that only one employee has been selected twice as a top-tier winner. s Send comments to ljakobson@incentivemag.com WE CAN HELP YOUR COMPANY BUILD A CULTURE OF SUCCESS IN ALMOST ANY CULTURE. G L O B A L E M P L O Y E E R E C O G N I T I O N S O L U T I O N S T H AT G E T R E S U LT S . Need to engage a diverse workforce? Hallmark Insights makes it easy. We offer hundreds of employee recognition and reward options worldwide with our powerful IRIS technology. Incentives that inspire superior quality and service, and get measurable results. Here, there and everywhere. Call your Hallmark Insights Account Executive at 800.765.4438 or visit HallmarkInsights.com today. MEANINGFUL. MEMORABLE. MEASURABLE. © 2008 Hallmark Insights. All rights reserved. 30 | Incentive | September 2008 | incentivemag.com http://HallmarkInsights.com http://HallmarkInsights.com http://incentivemag.com
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