How to be More Productive: The Benefits of Incentive Programs

If you are responsible for running a business chances are you often ask yourself, What can I do to boost productivity? If you’re constantly running your head against the wall, thinking of ways to improve work performance, you might want to take a deep breath and check out Incentive Solution CEO Mark Herbert’s latest article in Wood Floor Business.

With over 25 years of experience in overseeing business operations, and most of that in the incentive industry, Mark Herbert knows a thing or two about how employee incentives can increase efficiency and boost workplace productivity.

For the full scoop, make sure to read the article. But if you’re in a hurry, I’ve taken a second to write a quick breakdown of the key points. While Mark’s article deals specifically with the wood flooring business, I like looking at things from the bigger picture. So I’ve expanded each point so that they’re relevant to all of our clients.

Key Points:

• Productivity increases when employees have clear expectations and specific goals. A well-designed work incentive program will help to reinforce goals and make expectations clearer. Of course, having a full technology suite designed to do just that doesn’t hurt.
• Start with concrete objectives. Identify your goal. Are you trying to gain better insight into your channel? Develop better relationships with channel partners? Build stronger, more permanent business relationships? The more specific you are with your goal, the more successful you will be in implementing an incentive program to strategically attack that goal.
• Implement a system to measure success. Have a system for tracking specific goal-related metrics. Use that feedback to coach up your sales team or channel partners so that they are better equipped to reach those goals. (Hmm, sounds a little like Performance Tracking 😉).
• Use rewards for specific outcomes. The success of any incentive program relies on being backed by rewards that feel necessary, beneficial, and meaningful. Clear goals. Clear feedback. Clear relationship between desired action and reward. These are what will make your program a success.

Like I mentioned earlier, these are big picture steps. Try to think outside the box a little and think of a way that you could design an incentive strategy, using these steps, to target any specific challenges your business is facing.

And since we’re always looking at new applications for incentive programs—and keeping an eye on trends in our industry—I found a really cool article about how a small town in Indiana created an incentive program to attract young, educated workers and build out the economy of the whole town! Something to think about…

Til next time,

Nichole Gunn

VP of Marketing & Creative Services

Incentive Solutions