Employee Incentive Programs

Reach Your Company Goals More Easily

Employee incentives are a valuable tool to help your business to achieve goals. With layoffs and job freezes many employees are doing more work with no increase in compensation. Employee incentives, done correctly, can increase employee satisfaction and productivity.

Consider these compelling reasons to take a closer look at incentives in your business. This information will help you design or redesign an incentive program in your organization.

The Value of Recognition Award Programs

· 39% of employees who belong to companies that have recognition incentives in place are extremely satisfied with their current company.

· Only 9% of employees at companies without such incentives said they were extremely satisfied.

· Overall, 82% said recognition and praise motivate them to improve their performance compared to the 17% that said they did not find them motivational.

· Of the 2,000 employees surveyed, 43% who received formal measurement and recognition were extremely satisfied with their current company.

Results of "SITE" Sponsored Study on the Effectiveness of Incentives

· When designed, implemented and monitored correctly, incentive programs (with awards in the form of money or tangible awards) increase performance by an average of 22%.

· Team incentives can increase performance by as much as 44%.

· When an incentive is first introduced for completing a task, a 15% increase in performance occurs.

· When asked to persist toward a goal, employees increase their performance by 27% when presented through an incentive program.

· Incentive programs that run for a year or more produce an average 44% performance increase. Programs that run for six months or less showed a 30% increase.

Other Important Research Findings:

· Incentive programs attract and retain quality employees

· Quota based incentive programs were found to be the most effective.

· Piece-rate programs for doing more of something also were found to be effective.

· Contests and sweepstakes (some of the most frequently-used incentive plans) were found to be the least effective.

Special thanks to Partners for Incentives November publication and their "A Case for Incentives," article for incentive industry research results.