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I really like this article especially focusing on awarding top employees who share and help the other employees! The owner and VP of one of my jobs wanted us to create an incentive program, but they wanted one fast. Even though we told them we would like to research and come up with a good program, it didn’t matter. The incentive program was broken before we started. It was fun in the beginning and everyone was hyped up on receiving rewards and turning the rewards in for prizes. The incentives were based on performance and being recognized by customers. This didn’t work so well with employees who worked back of house and independently. I received complaints on a daily basis that the program wasn’t fair and the incentive program that was supposed to raise morale backfired!

Per the article ABA Banking Journal (2004) “Ideally, what management should do is evaluate their best practices and promote them throughout the organization so that the average performers can learn by example. My belief is that most people -want to do a good, if not outstanding, job and are willing to consider a new approach. But they need insight into what is expected in specific terms.” I will remember this the next time I am involved with incentive programs.

Avoiding common incentive mistakes. (2004). American Bankers Association. ABA Banking Journal, 96(12), 55-55,56.