A Tweet appeared the other day from a rail company proudly proclaiming a steady rise in their employee engagement score, but no mention of any consequence of this. Are customers getting a better experience, has their satisfaction risen, are trains more full, more often and with more delighted customers, are trains more reliable?

What makes business better? At BI WORLDWIDE we're obsessed with this topic - why do some people strive to achieve more than others? Why do businesses spend billions on incentives, yet not get the returns they could? ...

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”.

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...

BI WORLDWIDE's mission is to produce measurable business results.  A pharma client's conference demanded a great event solution and needed to demonstrate true ROI.  But what of the event from a measurement perspective and what were the key research elements that ensured the event was a positive success for the delegates and the client business......?

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.

Staff retention is a big issue at the moment, regardless of the current pressures like job uncertainty and redundancy, how do you ensure you reward long service in a way that makes employees feel really valued, and what's the right reward?

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.

A recent Gallup survey showed that only 24% of employees are engaged with their organisation and in May a CBI report highlighted how critical employee engagement is in weathering the recession.  The Training Foundation's white paper, authored by David Macleod, of the Macleod Report to Government on Employee Engagement (May 2009), highlights a different approach for managers.

Employee engagement is just one element that contributes to business improvement and has to be assessed in conjunction with employee motivation and performance improvement strategies to really deliver business improvement.