There are rare moments when real world events illustrate perfectly the elements that underpin how we perform as people and how we apply that in business. This morning was one of those moments, a single radio report..

How often are engagement and incentive programmes run that primarily address the top and mid performers?

How many times is the basis of a corporate engagement strategy “one size fits all”?

A lot of time and money spent improving sales and customer service is focused on employees who are deemed “engaged”. Those sitting outside this definition will no doubt attract the label of ‘poor performers’, ‘laggards’, ‘disinterested’ and be viewed as a “cost”.

The atmosphere in our office is building as we approach our Christmas party. It is quite amazing the effect it seems to have had on everyone which is why it is surprising for us to hear how so many companies have been scrapping their Christmas parties this year; we know that times are tough and 2012 looks set to be another challenging year but Christmas provides the perfect opportunity to reward, recognise and motivate...

Employee recognition programmes are key to engagement and motivation. In fact, a well developed programme, with the correct communications to support it, will help employees feel valued by the business, improving productivity and reducing attrition – implementing one is a no brainer surely?

But what constitutes a good employee reward programme? How do you engage employees and, more importantly, keep them engaged with the scheme…

As a business that preaches performance improvement, BI WORLDWIDE also practices it. We are proud to be working with clients to help improve their businesses, but we know that we're only as good as the last project - whether a full performance improvement programme, reward and recognition scheme, or a product launch, conference or incentive travel event. To keep us on our toes we ask all we pitch to and work with what they think...

Within any incentive programme communication and motivation work intrinsically together and therefore communications are fundamental to positively influencing the behaviour of the audience. However, the nature of those communications and the media by which they are delivered is key to ensuring the message get put across effectively and understood.

How motivation programmes are critical to the business strategy for automotives.

The current climate has brought a difficult trading environment for car manufacturers and with it an even greater focus on sales activity. The ability to motivate a sales force to hit sales goals becomes extremely important. In these demanding circumstances, a proven incentive mechanic that is entirely measurable and delivers exceptional results becomes essential. Nothing achieves this more effectively than BI WORLDWIDE’s GoalQuest, a performance improvement solution designed specifically to improve the performance of sales people.

Rewards or incentives can prove a highly effective means of motivating staff or channel partners to achieve certain objectives or behave in a certain way. But what automated solutions exist to enable this, and how can you find the right one for your requirements? 

There are many existing automated solutions offering rewards and incentives which serve as an attempt to encourage employees to work harder.  When considering which automated incentive system would be most effective in rewarding employees and channel partners, companies should be aware that this sort of incentive solution does not necessarily motivate employees to change their behaviour. 

Motivation is about improving performance through positively influencing people’s behaviour; simply offering rewards alone may not be enough to achieve this.  Therefore, a reward solution should simply be a single component of a structured motivation programme.

Call centres are typically characterised by the highly repetitive work undertaken by the operators, be it sales or customer service focused, the job is the same day-to-day.  Heavily operational and process driven, staff are there to deliver results.

The initial challenge when delivering a motivation programme to an audience of this nature is to consider their level of engagement, in most cases engagement is very low due to high attrition rates and seasonal workers, more often than not call centre staff are there because they need the income, not because they love their job. In many cases, a period of time spent working in a call centre can be just an interim phase where employees want to get in, do the work, and get out as quickly as possible. The job can therefore become too systematic at the expense of customer service.

It's a well known fact that motivation solutions are an important element of business strategy.  However, there's a risk that  companies fail to fully understand their definitive role in achieving business objectives.  All too often, they fail to fully evaluate the efficiency of their investment in motivation.  In other words, do they really measure the return on investment.

Only the proper analysis of Return on Investment (ROI) will serve as a valuable element to business improvement.  Measuring the investment made in any motivation programme is critical to determine whether budget has been well spent in effecting the desired behavioural change.  If you can’t measure it - you can’t manage it!