Incentives are mission critical

By Paul Hebert, Excellence In Motivation, Inc.

Results from survey after survey show that motivating and engaging employees, suppliers, and customers are key elements of success in today’s business environment. From using consumers as co-creators of products to harnessing the power of all employees for innovation, directing the energy of these audiences is imperative for business survival. In today’s marketplace business rules change, new business models emerge and technologies spring up overnight, rendering products, services, processes and procedures obsolete in the blink of an eye. No one person can imagine all possible futures for company. Creating the infrastructure that allows you to monitor and respond to these changes and measure subsequent results give a company a tool for ongoing success and should be considered mission critical for any organization.

Properly designed incentives, recognition, communications, and measurement comprise the strategic backbone for ‘just-in-time’ reinforcement to address the myriad of challenges companies face today. These initiatives provide companies with the power to quickly access and ignite the key audiences to achieve your business goals.

Leading companies understand this, however, many companies dismiss incentives as ‘schemes’ and ‘promotions’ seemingly devoid of any strategic value. Through onerous RFP processes, companies deconstruct the strategic design and fulfillment of mission critical solutions down to individual fulfillment modules and bid them out to the lowest bidder. How could something so important to the long-term success of a company become so devalued? Almost every organizational consultant will explain that people are today’s competitive advantage. People are the units of production in today’s knowledge and creativity-based economy. Companies need to understand that incentives and recognition are the necessary tools required to maintain your production line, keep it in top shape, and thereby drive improved business performance.

No different than the expense to keep a plant running in the industrial age were mission critical, the cost and planning to keep your employees, suppliers, businesses partners and customers ‘maintained’ is just as important.

Paul Hebert is Executive Director, Excellence in Motivation, Inc. Please visit www.eim-inc.com for more details.