HR Management Employee Incentive, Recognition and Reward Case Study

Human Resource Professionals are continuously searching for fresh and innovative ideas to drive positive results through employee incentive, recognition and reward programs. In addition to delivering results, today’s busy HR Professional needs a solution that is easy and efficient to administer and provides the flexibility to adapt to any number of programs that the organization is promoting and supporting.

According to Daniel and Metcalf; “High-performance companies understand the importance of offering awards and incentives that recognize, validate and value outstanding work. They keep employees motivated and are effective methods of reinforcing company expectations and goals, especially in times when merit budgets are low (or even frozen), promotions are rare, health premiums are on the rise and overall job satisfaction is low.”

There are many factors that contribute to the overall success of employee award and incentive programs. Some examples include commitment and support by senior management, clearly defined goals and objectives, effective promotion with quality consistent communications and the right incentive and reward to name a few.

Identifying the right incentive that will support the large variety of employee incentive and award programs in use today, that will appeal to all levels within the organization and is easy and efficient to administer can seem virtually impossible; that is until now. In the mini case studies that follow, you will read how five different organizations implemented five completely different types of employee programs each with different goals and objectives and all achieved very successful results. What was the common thread? The same incentive tool was used in each of the five cases. What was it and why did it work so well?

Employee Incentive Safety Program: “Rim Safe Colleagues at Work”

Rim Hospitality is a hotel, resort and boutique property management company offering full-service property management solutions including Rim Office2 hotel property revenue management software, fully integrated real-time payroll, hotel revenue data collection & reporting, and employee staffing and training programs.

With rising workers compensation expenses, Rim Hospitality needed to find a cost effective solution that would motivate employees to help reduce these costs, and also maximize efficiencies with employee productivity and scheduling. A comprehensive plan outlining all of the program objectives, requirements, communications, training, projected costs and benefits were developed.

A safety team leader was appointed at each property to facilitate the program, maintain frequent communication about the program, and reinforce the messages coming from upper

management. Consistent communication from the home office, to team leaders, to colleagues is an important reminder to drive this new behavior. They decided to implement a prepaid MasterCard card as the award. This provided the employee the freedom to choose what they want, when they want it, making them feel truly rewarded.

The list of recipients is communicated to Springbok Services each quarter that provides the personalized MasterCard cards with a safety logo and bulk ships them to Rim Hospitality. Awards are handed out at each hotel property to provide a personal touch and give upper management the opportunity to again, reinforce the positive behavior they are looking for and share the results of the program amongst all the hotels in a motivating way.

Rim Hospitality experienced positive results almost immediately which have steadily increased. Over two years, they reduced workers compensation claims by 29%. This meant a savings of $634,000 and a 3.4 to 1 ROI to the bottom line.

Peer-to-peer Employee Recognition Program: “Informal Awards Program”

Applied Materials is the global leader in nanomanufacturing technology solutions for the electronics industry with a broad portfolio of innovative equipment, services and software products. Applied Materials innovates and commercializes the processing and manufacturing technology that helps semiconductor manufacturers produce the world's most advanced chips.

Applied Materials had implemented a peer-to-peer employee recognition program that was being manually tracked and awards were being fulfilled out of their company store. Managing the program was utilizing resources that could be focused on other productive projects. They needed to find a solution that would automate the program and award fulfillment.

Applied Materials chose the Reward Incentive Management System (RIMS) from Springbok Services to fulfill this need. RIMS is a web based application that was easy to integrate with The Applied Materials reward and recognition program. RIMS fully automated the process of setting up and tacking budgets, nominating and approving awards, collecting recipient information and streamlining the award fulfillment process through its integration into Springbok’s MasterCard card management system.

The goal of the program is to encourage outstanding performance and consistent behavior for employees and temporary or contract personnel to support corporate goals and values related to the following categories:

• Safety First: Individual award to promote positive safety-related behaviors and/or results that go beyond the normal job scope.
• Quality Counts: Individual award to promote positive quality-related behaviors and/or results that go beyond the normal job scope.
• Achieving Excellence: Individual award to promote outstanding behaviors and/or results toward corporate goals and objectives.
• TEAM Award Together Everyone Achieves More: Award to promote outstanding behaviors and/or results demonstrated or obtained by a team of 10 or less.
  

Employees can nominate each other for awards, email notifications are sent to managers for approval, and once approved, the MasterCard prepaid card is mailed to the recipient. Fulfillment of awards through their company store has been eliminated and the whole award nomination and approval process has been automated and streamlined increasing both employee productivity and satisfaction.

Health & Wellness Initiative: “Healthy Living”

The Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG) is the world's largest manufacturer, seller and distributor of Pepsi-Cola beverages — some of the world's most recognized consumer brands. The PBG sales force of more than 30,000 customer representatives sell and deliver nearly 200 million eight-ounce servings of Pepsi-Cola beverages per day. PBG's focus is on superior sales execution, customer service, merchandising and operating excellence.

In 2005, PBG was working to better manage the rising cost of health care for its employees. They decided they could do that by educating their employees on various health related issues. To narrow the scope of broad number of health related topics, PBG implemented an employee survey to get feedback on the interest of their employees.

Beginning in January 2006, employees were provided the opportunity to complete a healthcare survey and receive a prepaid MasterCard card as an incentive. In addition to the employee receiving the incentive, participating spouses in the healthcare benefits program could qualify as well. Qualifying employees were collected on a weekly basis by a third party healthcare management company and the data file was submitted to Springbok. The prepaid MasterCards were made and mailed directly to the employees who completed the survey. The participation rate from employees in the survey was over double the rate PBG has projected going into the program.

Following the survey period, results were analyzed and employees were offered a variety of healthcare educational classes to attend. When the class was completed, the employee received an additional prepaid MasterCard as a reward for completing the class. The educational program is on-going at this time.

PBG rolled the program out with a multi-media communications campaign, from emails and newsletters, to direct mail pieces mailed to employee’s homes. A custom branded PBG Healthy Living prepaid MasterCard card was used along with a custom card carrier and envelope. This branding helped tie the incentive back to the program continuing to remind and

motivate employees to further participate. They attribute the success of the program to the amount and consistency of communication and the attractiveness and flexibility of the incentive, Springbok’s prepaid MasterCard card.

Employee Service Awards Program: “Iowa Telecom’s Personal Touch”

Iowa Telecom is the second largest local telephone company in Iowa. They work hard to provide their customers with reliable dial tone, long distance and Internet services every second of every day. They provide telephone service to over 440 communities across the state. Their 600+ trained professionals are working across the state to provide reliable service with a personal touch.

That personal touch is not only conveyed to their customers, but to their employees as well. With the large number of employees and diverse interests they have, Iowa Telecom was faced with trying to consolidate their service anniversary awards program, to a streamlined, single awards program. After considering a variety of different awards, Iowa Telecom decided to utilize Springbok’s prepaid Service Awards MasterCard.

Since the fall of 2002, Iowa Telecom has been awarding their employees for length of service, celebrating the employees’ anniversary during the month it occurs. Each calendar year, an employee file is sent to Springbok to manage the program and order the prepaid MasterCard. Orders are placed for people whose anniversaries are in the following month. That schedule, gives Iowa Telecom plenty of lead time to verify the employee’s status and provide payment for the order.

Orders are fulfilled and the prepaid MasterCard cards are bulk shipped to Iowa Telecom’s human resource department. They utilize the “service awards” branded card to reinforce what the incentive is for and the card is personalized with the employees name for that special recognition.

To show appreciation to these loyal employees, Iowa Telecom President, Alan L. Wells, includes a letter of appreciation acknowledging the employees loyalty for service. This personal touch is consistent with the pleasant work environment and efforts to recognize and reward employees for their achievements.

The program has been running over 4 years and employee feedback has been positive with regard to receiving the prepaid MasterCard card as it provides them the flexibility to choose their own reward by purchasing what they want, from millions of places, wherever MasterCard debit cards are accepted.

Employee Sales Incentive Program: “Balkamp – NAPA Auto Parts”

NAPA purchases auto parts from various manufacturers and redistributes them to NAPA warehouses. The role of Balkamp is to take the NAPA Auto Parts Store into new markets and to provide the necessary support to enable the store to gain market share. Balkamp adds value to NAPA stores through packaging, order quantities, catalogs, sales, pricing, service, promotions, warranty, obsolescence, innovation, and a product mix that includes hard parts, tools and equipment, accessories, service items, performance and SUV accessories, and chemicals.

Coordinating with so many different parts manufacturers and their individual incentive programs, Balkamp was challenged with finding a way to increase sales by their district reps to their franchises and streamline the payments to the sales team upon achieving their goals. Balkamp also needed the flexibility of managing multiple incentive programs at the same time for multiple manufacturers. Grouping the awards into one payment vehicle simplified the process for Balkamp and the recipient. Balkamp selected a re-loadable prepaid MasterCard debit card that can be used anywhere MasterCard debit cards are accepted.

The Balkamp incentive award program started in 2005 to help increase sales company wide through their distribution channels to their franchises. With 100+ district sales representatives, Balkamp can implement incentive programs relatively easily, communicate the goals, track the sales and award the sales person very quickly. Requirements are built for sales people to achieve certain criteria. For various products at different times, the sales people are tasked with selling truck loads of product through their distribution centers to any of their stores nationally. Upon reaching certain thresholds, the award amounts are loaded onto their prepaid MasterCard card from Springbok Services which they retain and can be re-loaded each time a new incentive threshold is achieved.

Into the second year of the program, Balkamp is continuing with this incentive program as it has made a positive impact in increased sales, and decreased costs associated with administering their sales incentive program.

Summary – The Common Thread

What was the common thread? The prepaid MasterCard card was the incentive and award tool used by each of these organizations to successfully drive their program results. Why does it work so well? There are three very fundamental reasons.

1. A MasterCard program from Springbok is easy to set up, has tremendous flexibility and is efficient to administer and support. Cards can electronically ordered in virtually any denomination and delivered to the employer for distribution or direct to the employee.
2. The card can be customized in a variety of ways to reflect the company brand and image, personalized with the employee name and packaged to include specialized messaging to reinforce the purpose of the reward and express the company’s appreciation.
3. Perhaps most importantly, a prepaid MasterCard card can be used by the employee to select exactly what they want that will make them truly feel the most rewarded. Whether clothes, electronics, travel, the spa or a night on the town, you can be sure the award will be appreciated and the benefits will be extraordinary.

Established in 1998 as The Best Present Company, Springbok Services, Inc. is a leading provider and processor of prepaid MasterCard programs issued through KeyCorp. Springbok provides a wide variety of distinctive, agile, and secure prepaid solutions to over 4,000 clients, including nearly 200 of the Fortune 500. For more information on Springbok, please visit www.SpringbokServices.com or call 1-877- 300-4272.