Incentives that work. Paul Weald

Transcription

1 Incentives that work Paul Weald

2 Is it all about the money? No it s about finding the right combination of: Reward Recognition Real time feedback

3 What does behavioural science teach us? Engaged employees want to know the desired expectations for their role so they can meet and exceed them are naturally curious about their company and their place in it perform at consistently high levels want to use their talents and strengths at work every day work with passion, and have a visceral connection to their company Behaviour is influenced most by immediate consequences A pay rise is immediate Your boss praising you is immediate But when that immediacy is lost, there is nothing new or additional to compel that behaviour any longer The scientists tell us that the absence of continual immediate consequences is usually the first and the biggest breakdown in an employee s self-motivating behaviour Daily immediate consequences in small relevant bites condition the heart and minds of staff

4 Sales examples Key attributes Relevant Daily updates Conditioning behaviours In the run-up to Christmas, a retail client wanted to maximise the efficiency of their call centre at the same time as incentivising agents to sell. Good agents could earn an extra 2 per hour through individual orders taken but only if they achieved threshold targets for availability and schedule adherence. The scheme ran cumulatively for a month and each day the scores for each agent were produced. The whole bonus would be paid at the end of the month, but only if the agent achieved their cumulative thresholds. The results for the centre were astonishing. Not Ready time was halved; sickness was negligible and orders per hour were up across the board, and most agents had a nice Christmas as a result! Example that worked

5 Service examples Key attributes Meaningful Peer group competition Organisationally compliant not necessarily cash based A centre manager in a public sector organisation asked each employee to answer the question If I gave you 5 as a special treat, how would you spend it? All agents had to take part and write down their individual requests. What the manager did then was to set a series of different challenges that, if the agent exceeded them through their performance, resulted in their prize being purchased and presented to them. This indeed generated high levels of employee engagement, whilst keeping within the financial rules of the organisation! Example that worked

6 What can go wrong? Dis-engaged employees are CAVE dwellers Consistently Against Virtually Everything Beware the risks Could just be temporary compliance Rewards that ignore reasons for under performance If our goal is excellence, no artificial incentive can ever match the power of intrinsic motivation. People who do exceptional work may be glad to be paid and even more glad to be well paid, but they do not work to collect a pay check. They work because they love what they do. Harvard Business Review

7 Case Study example Active Digital use a combination of: Company ipad every employee provided a company ipad with Active Hub app No Work It s your Birthday! an extra days leave Monthly Joker days play Joker card to leave the office early once a month (no questions asked) Feet Up Friday Drinks and nibbles at the local pub on last Friday of the month Celebrate Success lunches & champagne for team achievements Power Snacks weekly company delivery of fruit and healthy snacks Flexible working staff encouraged to work flexibility on a rota (to allow time to focus on customers) R & R Days Work from home days Most recent employee survey scores reflect these efforts: 100% of employees are proud to work at Active Digital 93% of our people rated team spirit as good or higher

8 Active Hub Technology supports the engagement approach Positivity Wall where employees can post/share anything positive about their day Little Victories colleagues leave comments, and give each other a high five or emoji Analysis of team results reviewing customer feedback