Incentive - December 2008 - (Page 12) HEADLINES continued from page 6 budgets and cutting back [cash] incentive plan pools…they’re definitely looking at, ‘Are we using non-cash incentives as much as we can?’ ” says Greg Stoskopf, a director with Deloitte Consulting’s Human Capital practice. He cites incentive merchandise and days off as two noncash options that may entice employees and employers alike, and emphasizes that companies must be sure that whatever incentives they use fit the preferences of the workers. “Say I work on a project and I get something that’s tangible at the end; there’s something about that tangibility that helps to make up for what the award might not have in [monetary value].” While Stoskopf describes such an increased interest in non-cash rewards as going “hand in hand” with the decrease in earnings, others emphasize that these non-monetary awards should have been used all along. “It’s not that these are new rewards that nobody’s ever heard of,” says Steve Kerr, former chief learning officer for GE and Goldman Sachs and author of Reward Systems: Does Yours Measure Up? (Harvard Business Press). “As long as we’re hurting from the economy, people are going to be extremely receptive to ways to attract and retain and excite people without going to [cash] that they don’t have… The non-financials are powerful.” Kerr taught a workshop in early November to managing directors from Goldman Sachs on “Managing Without Money.” He says the benefits of non-cash incentives hold in good times and bad, but sometimes it takes losing the option of using cash for these truths to be embraced. “It’s like anything else. When people are feeling good, they can lose track of things that are important,” says Kerr. “You want rewards that are reversible, available, performance-contingent, and financials usually don’t work because they’re limited, while non-financial awards are in a sense magic: they’re inexhaustible, they create their own supply.” 12 | Incentive | December 2008 | incentivemag.com http://www.etoncorp.com http://www.incentivemag.com
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.