Incentive - October 2008 - (Page 28)

Incentives By Alex Palmer f you’re not growing, you’re dying.” Strong words, but they sum up what many experts agree is a vital part of a happy and engaged workforce: continuous improvement. While some employees may be comfortable in their jobs, and do them well, experts say that organizations must also encourage their workers to keep looking for ways to strengthen their performance and expand their responsibilities, to help them stay enthusiastic about their work. “It is to everyone’s advantage for employees to be continuously growing and developing in their positions,” says Liz Bywater, the president of Bywater Consulting Group, an organizational consulting firm based in Yardley, Penn. “It benefits the organization, it benefits the individual and it benefits the team to be sure that people aren’t simply stagnating.” Bywater emphasizes that without these opportunities, employees may become These companies make learning a sought-after reward, not homework TO IMPROVE apathetic about their work, or just look for employment elsewhere. On the other hand, if their organization is giving them ways to learn valuable new skills or knowledge, the workers will not only know how to do their jobs better, but will become more energized in the process. While this development may be an incentive in itself, organizations are finding that incorporating merchandise and travel into improvement programs is a potent way to keep a workforce growing. grams. A recent six-week program was called “Apple For the Mind,” so named partly because it aimed to get employees to nourish their thinking through self-initiated improvements. The employees were asked to learn something new each week and share it with their coworkers in a new way each time. McMullen explains that this process is not only about learning, but also about teaching, which strengthens the retention and value of the new knowledge. “When you’ve got twentysome-odd people who are creative and love to inspire each other, the sharing is actually more important than the learning,” says McMullen. The “Apple” in the name had a second meaning as well. Red Pepper gave away an iPhone, iPod nano video, three iPod Shuffles and the grand prize of a MacBook Air. Employees would share in a unique way how they had planned their growth that week and be entered in a drawing for the Apple products. They had the option of sharing as often as twice a week, every week of the contest, which would give them 12 chances at winning the MacBook Air. “I get on them about planned growth all the time, so for one, I had to put my money where my mouth was as far as offering true incentives, and two, being creative in how I asked them to do it,” says McMullen. Employees wrote blog posts, made posters, held contests and employed all sorts of ways to get their new information across. McMullen himself visited an art museum and created a video to convey what he had seen and what value that held for his work with the company. Others shared case studies that they’d come across in industry publications or recent research they had read. To help give the employees more avenues to share what I Planned Growth at Red Pepper For example, at the advertising firm Red Pepper Inc., based in Nashville, Tenn., employees are encouraged and rewarded for improving themselves. Tim McMullen, the company’s president, calls it “planned growth”—intentionally advancing or improving one’s knowledge and skills. The agency frequently holds these planned growth pro- 28 | Incentive | October 2008 | incentivemag.com http://www.incentivemag.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Incentive - October 2008

Incentive - October 2008
Contents
Editor's Note
Headlines
Cover Story: Face Time with Senior Executives is the Top Motivator of Cisco Systems' Chairman's Club Winners
Incentive Interview
Safety Incentives: Safety Drives a Limousine Service's Motivational Efforts
Case Study
Primer
Learning: Diving into Incentives for the Mind Enhances Both Loyalty and the Bottom Line
Research: Travel IQ
Travel News
Florida Coast to Cost
Caribbean Escape
Potentials Here and Now
Gadgets & Power Tools: High-End Roars
Seen at the Motivation Show
Advertisers Index
Off the Cuff

Incentive - October 2008