Incentive - September 2008 - (Page 59) time that you should be quiet,” says Mike Harris, Vantage’s director of media services. “There’s always something to talk about.” A notable campaign that was first brainstormed in one of these pitch contests was for a client with a software tool designed to help employers manage their network servers, monitoring how much bandwidth was being used. Not a particularly sexy product, but one of the employees thought of promoting the testing of the system during CBS Sports’ live online streaming of the 2007 NCAA basketball tournament, so companies could monitor employee Internet usage (which reportedly spikes during March Madness, consuming telecommunications resources as well as decreasing productivity). The idea was a PR coup, with ABC, USA Today and the Washington Post all mentioning the program, eventually earning Vantage a “Stevie Award” for best communications for a PR campaign in the 2008 American Business Awards. This proactive approach to creating news where it might not at first seem to exist is an example of the sort of “stretch goals” Vantage has instituted and rewards its employees for. Each team sits down every month and comes up with the stretch goals for their account, which vary by client and by the month in question. If there is a trade show taking place and the team expects to book about 12 meetings, they try to stretch that to 18. If they are working to improve a client’s Web presence, they might try to get the client onto social networking sites like Facebook, in addition to producing YouTube clips for them. The groups that reach their stretch goals or devise winning ideas are treated to experiential awards like car racing, chocolate making or an in-office back rub at the hands of a professional masseuse. “A big part of it is that by the end of the day on the thirty-first or the end of the month, [the stretch goal] has to be done,” says Harris. “So they’re not only coming up with creative ideas and finding ways to get that extra briefing, they’re making sure that they get it done on time.” Harris says it’s turned the employees into enthusiastic self-starters, seeking to accomplish their goals with minimal pressure from the company leadership. He emphasizes that these goal competitions are framed not as zero-sum games, where some win at others’ expense. Here everyone is motivated to succeed in the goals they set for themselves. Vantage has seen tangible returns on its experiential incentives. Comparing the number of press briefings for three clients between 2006—before the program was put the monthly stretch goals had a lot to do with this improvement. Keeping It Meaningful from Miles Aw a y Team outings aren’t really an option for PerkettPR, based in Marshfield, Mass. Each of the company’s employees works from a home office and communicates with the rest of the team through BlackBerry, instant messaging and e-mail, with no physical office space where the staff gathers (the company’s CEO, Chris Perkett, says it’s a “virtual office”). This unconventional approach to Incentive winners from Vantage’s San Francisco office prepare to burn rubber at GoKart Racer in Burlingame, Calif. in place—and 2007, the leadership found increases of 20 percent for the first client, 18 percent for the second and a staggering 97.6 percent increase for the third. “[This company was] very happy with what we were doing for them, but they weren’t a client who was generating a lot of news,” Adler says. “But when we got so creative with tying what they do to trends and tying what they do to larger news items, we just blew them away with what they were getting.” Adler says that setting and rewarding the workplace is appropriate for an agency with clients that are on the cutting edge of technology and telecommunications, and offers flexibility, which is key in an industry that requires high energy and multiple skills but that, perhaps for these reasons, has a high turnover rate. Perkett helps prevent employee burnout by offering as much as five weeks of vacation for employees in their first year, as well as birthdays off and paid leave for community service work. incentivemag.com | September 2008 | Incentive | 59 http://incentivemag.com
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