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Culture Shift: Beware the Robo-motivators
July 14, 2008
Are your recognition events starting to feel a little…mechanical? Here are four ways to make them more human—and effective—again.
By Paul Levesque
The more frequently and predictably employees receive "special extras," the less special these extras come to feel. It's only a matter of time before incentives seemingly become part of the regular compensation package, something employees feel entitled to.
Well-intentioned managers often worsen this problem by creating standardized events or forums for handing out incentives, and even standardizing which kinds of achievement earn which types of awards. They do it because they're busy; they do it to save time. Unfortunately, the effort to save time can turn recognition events into a waste of time—and money.
Clearly, not all efforts to celebrate successes are equally effective. (This week's video podcast includes a rarely-seen film clip illustrating a mechanized approach to recognition carried to an extreme.) Recognition events that deliver the biggest and longest-lasting motivational impact typically have four factors in common.
The Time-and-Effort Factor
It's a mistake to assume those incentives bearing the highest price tag will always have the biggest impact on recipients. In fact, a steady diet of big-ticket awards can backfire, leading employees to conclude that management must have "money to burn," and that even these splashy prizes may therefore represent only a fraction of what staffers could—and should—be receiving.
No one is ever in danger of concluding that managers have time to burn, however. Employee incentives with the highest impact are therefore always those that represent management putting in the time and effort to create one-of-a-kind events that feature highly-specific expressions of personal appreciation. The greater the time and effort invested in creative and unique ways to recognize good work, the more meaningful and memorable such recognition becomes for the recipients.
The External Factor
The tendency in many work settings is to recognize employees for superb attendance, for example, or for always turning in their time sheets punctually, or for complying with any number of other internal policies or rules. This is management recognizing employees for doing things managers consider important. While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with this, it can never have the same motivational effect as recognition for doing things customers consider important. The simple truth is that on a day-to-day basis, most employees care far more about meeting customer needs than they do about meeting management’s needs.
This is where incentives and recognition become linked to the larger organizational mission. Managers use actual customer feedback (or even invite customers to attend and express their appreciation in person) to convey that these awards and prizes were earned by making customers happy, which in turn could not make managers any happier. The more visibly this external element becomes blended into the whole reason behind the celebration, the greater its motivational effect.
The Hero Factor
Virtually every organization has dedicated employees who routinely bend over backwards to help solve customers' problems. The vast majority of these hero stories go untold and unrecognized. A little digging on management's part, however, will often bring these stories to light. Making it easy and convenient for delighted customers to express their appreciation—via comment cards, e-mails or a special phone line, for example—can uncover a wealth of "hero" stories.
It's one thing to recognize employees for making customers happy in the general sense—and quite another to be able to recount in vivid detail the specific things one or more employees did to exceed a particular customer's expectations. Such stories have a way of touching and inspiring all who hear them. When incorporated into a recognition event, true-life hero stories can create deeply moving moments no one in attendance will ever forget—especially the honorees.
The Audience Factor
Repetitious celebration can become as routine and uninteresting as anything else. When the Apollo astronauts first walked on the moon, a world-wide audience watched on live television; but the news networks carried little or no live coverage of subsequent lunar missions. If even the first manned exploration of another planet quickly becomes boring, where does that leave your look-alike recognition events?
Making each event different and unique, incorporating external feedback from happy customers, and highlighting employee hero stories—all of these will greatly boost interest and motivation. But if you're going to stage that kind of memorable show, you need a good-sized audience to really make it worthwhile.
It's just simple arithmetic: the sound of five people applauding can never carry the same emotional impact as five hundred. The crowning touch to any high-impact celebration event is to include as many employees in the audience as possible—and even their loved ones too, if circumstances permit.
Those who watch live coverage of the Oscars or the Super Bowl feel afterwards that they were part of the event. This kind of shared emotional experience creates a strong "we were there" bond that can last a long time. It’s one of the most meaningful gifts any business organization can give to its deserving employees.
 Editor's Note: At one time mechanized motivation was the accepted norm, if the film clip featured in this week's Culture Shift video podcast is any indication. Paul Levesque uses this clip to illustrate three costly mistakes many managers continue to make to this day. Employee recognition is of course intended to boost morale—but these three all-too-common mistakes often produce the exact opposite effect, as you can discover by clicking here for the video download (also avaialble in an audio format).
INCENTIVE online "Culture Shift" columnist Paul Levesque is the author of five books, including "Customer Service Made Easy" and "Motivation," both from Entrepreneur Press. He's a seminar leader and public speaker with two decades' experience as an international business consultant specializing in the connection between employee motivation and customer satisfaction. Be sure to check out all of the podcasts from the Culture Shift series at www.incentivemag.com/cultureshift.
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